


the light that must shine (prismatic)

by violetinfidel



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Crossover, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Physical Abuse, References to Depression, Tags May Change, Trans Character, again not focal points but certainly character traits, be forewarned., boy are there some of those. these premade tags are not at all comprehensive though, dynamic tags, i know theres a warning for it but there will be lots of violence involved later, i'm psyched and also terrified, if you follow my tumblr you'll know some things about this already, ill drop a warning for panic/anxiety attacks too, in which i attempt to finish a longfic, just in case this might trigger some people, the abuse isnt graphic for the most part but its mentioned, this is all i can think of for now. more to come as i actually write like im supposed to as a writer, you're in for a ride
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-09 23:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 56,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13492176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetinfidel/pseuds/violetinfidel
Summary: throughout the ages, there was always a hero. the king of darkness rose, and fell, again and again, in a pattern that defies time itself. and the hero pursued him, for their spirits were irreversibly intertwined, light bound to dark in an age-old struggle, the same song and dance ever to be repeated.people are not prepared when there is no hero. things go very poorly when there is no hero. incidentally, things that lead us to become villains may also lead us to become heroes, with time. all it takes is determination and a plan, and as many knives as you can possibly bring to the gun fight. the real villain may be a force of the ages, bearing the raw physical manifestation of power, but you will have knives.





	1. a prelude

The name Ganon is not a new name. It has been spoken for millennia, whispered in hushed voices among the alleys, roared in defiance and rage in the heat of the battlefield. It began long ago, with the king of void Demise, in a land as yet untouched by the children of the goddess. As the seals broke the hero rose, called forth by the maiden of the blade, to combat the evils long latent. In his dying breath he cursed the hero and the goddess-blooded, to be reborn eternal with the tides of darkness, never a rest for their spirits. For centuries he lay dormant, until his strength was such that he could rise once more, the soul of the chosen alongside him. So it was for millennia, and the heroes of the eras were enshrined in legend, the king Ganon ever thwarted.

Then came the age of the wild. The children of Hylia had come far by then, with new technologies, relics left to them from a time long gone. And Ganon, cunning and shrewd, turned it against them. With the aid of new forces and the divine arsenal he ravaged the land, slaughtering and burning as he struck from within, dividing the land against itself. The hero was slain, and rushed to the ancient temple to be saved, that he might stand once more- the goddess-blood stirred her powers and held her might against the Calamity’s, sealed within the confines of the castle.

The hero sleeps still, in his century’s slumber, slowly healing. The goddess-blood fights still, locked in struggle against Ganon, her duty to her land. The four champions are gone from this life, struck down by nature’s blights, scourges of wind, water, fire, and thunder, leaving their abilities through their descendants, their divine beasts run amok. Cities lay in ruins, villages in shambles, fields razed to ashes. And slowly nature takes back what is hers, spreading her roots through the rubble and reclaiming it with her iron grip. Hylia’s children live still, scattered across the continent, back to the simple beginnings of the pioneers of the sky.

The hero sleeps still, and there is no guarantee that he will wake. It has been decades. There is only hope.


	2. (fight or) flight

Living among the sheikah-  _ being _ a sheikah- is a dangerous thing. Hylians are harmless enough- nothing special to them save their mild case of god complex. The sheikah are threats; physically superior, mentally superior, in tune with the flow of magic, innovative and cunning. 

Dangerous, on both sides of the coin.

There are the good sheikah and there are the bad sheikah, if ever something can be good or bad. There are those who would support the hero and the fight against the Calamity; there are those who would support the Calamity and the fight against the hero. The Yiga are dangerous as well. They are, after all, sheikah.

Of course, the sheikah have denounced them and severed all ties with the Yiga. The Yiga are the servants of Ganon, hunters of the hero, enemies to all those that wish their land to be preserved- they must be denounced, painful as it may be. The sheikah are sided with the cause of the hylians, and have been since the two races were joined in land and purpose. 

The risks are understood. Understanding does not prevent tragedy. 

He knows this, but that doesn’t keep it from hurting.

They’d left months prior. Rather, his mother had left months prior, his father following shortly thereafter, fearing… Something. Rightly so; she did not make it back. Neither did he. He was given the news at the tender age of eight. An orphan; fatherless; motherless. It didn’t sink in immediately. Death was an abstract concept and not one often discussed. Then, later, as he was handed the traditional mourning garments, preparing for the departure ritual, it clicked. He had seen this once before- a small child hardly older than himself, waiting up on a hill for a mother who was never to return, pulling the onyx hairsticks from her hair and demanding her mother fix it.

He couldn’t bring himself to feel very much. Not at first. He dressed, as neatly as he could manage, pinned up his hair and went to help with the meal, as was custom- send off the beloved with a final feast, shared by all who had shared in the light of their lives. He knew in his heart that the food was superb; it tasted like sawdust in his mouth. They had no bodies to bury or to burn; instead they took two apples, symbols of the heart and the cosmos and the cycle of life, and burned them, sent them with prayers to the goddess and a final goodbye. He recalled, vaguely, falling asleep with his forehead pressed to the statue of Hylia, and being carried someplace by small withered arms, and waking in the deep of night on the pillows of the elder house. It was then that the numbness subsided. Anger took its place, anger and grief and a pervading sense of  _ empty _ , and he gave a wordless shout to the sky and set out to find a sparring dummy to tear to shreds.

And so he had no parents, and so the village became his parents, ever-watchful, monitoring his every movement. Permission to leave a house, permission to play with the other children, permission to breathe, practically. It was claustrophobic, he found, after years of surveillance. It wasn’t fair, that the others got to run as they pleased and he was confined to his  _ permissions _ . There had been a child not two years older than him that had gotten to  _ leave _ , came and went as he  _ pleased _ , and not even a full-blooded sheikah at that! But then maybe that was the point; mixed-bloods hardly ever chose to stay permanently among them. So many rumors, among the hylians, mistrustful of the sheikah as they were. It made no sense- if they’d look through a history book they’d see just where the sheikah’s loyalties lay- but it was what it was, and there wasn’t much to be done about it.

He resented that child, respect for his  _ elders _ out the window. Freedom, tantalizing and absolute, and it wasn’t like their situations were so different: orphans too soon, the both of them, he didn’t need the details.

But, in a strange way, he felt a sort of gratitude towards that child, for giving him an idea. Just hopped on his horse and rode right on out, came back when the mood struck. A horse would get him places, if he could manage it- there was a herd just beyond the cliffs of Lantern Lake, and from there he could go anywhere he wanted. Anywhere away from  _ there _ .

So he swallowed that bitterness the next time the child rode into town, and went to talk to him. Asked about his horse, his exploits, tips on riding horses and tips on places to go out in the great big world, once he was good and ready of course, wouldn’t want to alarm any of his elders… He never got a name, never asked for one, but he got what he needed, a mental map of the road to the nearest stable and a vague idea of how to get on a horse.

Patience was uncharacteristic to him, but he was so very patient in his preparations. He offered to help with the farming and the cooking, and squirreled away the little tidbits that would never be missed, skimmed the cutesy little adventure novels he’d noticed on Impa’s communal shelf and took his packing checklist from them: cloth, food, first aid supplies, a little torch-making kit, a knife, fishing line and some crude hooks he managed to bend from hair pins. When he was done he admired his handiwork- simple, ragtag and perhaps not the prettiest, but arguably functional- and he set his plans in motion.

He’d built up just enough trust to be left alone for a night or two a month, when they were just too busy to spare the manpower; he left then, in that little break in the watch, crept with the silence only a sheikah-born could keep and made a break for it in the pass that leads to the Sahasra Slopes. The herd was there, as the child had mentioned, a little band of five, and he tried to recall what the child had said. Flat coat makes for a better run, or something like that. There was a dappled black one he saw, and he liked it, and flat coat be damned he went for it, and he got it. The night was triumphant, he decided, even as he wrestled with the horse for control.

Wetland stable was the closest, the way he was going, or that’s what the child had said, at least. Straight down the slope, and the path would be waiting for him right at the bottom, there could be no missing it. He could get better directions there, and a bed for the night (he may have stolen a little stash of rupees as he prepared, but they were just green ones, no one would miss them). 

It was a gentle slope, grassy and breezy and gradual in its descent, and the moon was bright and full above him. Freedom- real, true  _ freedom _ \- sent exhilaration surging through his veins, and he urged his horse on with a shout. It didn’t obey. But that was okay, he thought, because they’d have time to work on that, and a slow pace was just as well, for now.

Bokoblin riders prowled the field, of this he had been warned, and he heard them before he saw them, screeching and shrieking in that odd language of theirs. He lay down on his horse, pressed down against the curve of its back and waited until they were past- it was hardly a problem, quiet and leisurely as they went, but even so he scarcely dared a breath until they were out of earshot. The tree at the bottom of the hill was his beacon; from there, the child had said, the path led straight past the Lanayru Wetlands to the stable. And there was no issue from there. Quickly he found that gentle goading seemed to make the horse obedient, at least for a time, and managed a trot halfway through the journey. Sunrise wasn’t far off when they arrived, and he was exhausted, but elated. The stablehands greeted him without suspicion, offered to board his horse and give him proper tack for just twenty rupees: it was his bed money, but he figured the investment was worth it if he was going to be on the road for a while, and asked after it.

“It’s a lifetime sort of thing,” Said the stablehand, “Up to five horses, if you ever need that many, all the way across Hyrule. It’s worth the small fee if you plan to travel much.”

“Guess I can sleep on the ground,” He mumbled, and forked it over. 

“It comes with a bedroll,” The stablehand told him, “Good quality, durable, and it’s not so bad to sleep in. A bit early to be sleeping now, isn’t it?”

He had a point- the sun was up, now, and come to think of it, it’d be better to get some distance before he risked a stop. So he inquired about the map hanging on the wall of the stable, asked about good places to go. The man seemed amused, but humored him, and tapped a place in the far northeast.

“It’s a region called Akkala,” He said, “You heard of it?” At his intent nod, the man pointed to a little red splotch nestled in a patch of trees at the foot of Death Mountain. “They have a good community up there, I hear. There’s rumors of a new town planned for that island in Lake Akkala.” He got up for a moment, returned with a folded piece of paper and handed it over- it turned out to be a map, an exact replica of the hanging one, markings and all. “Maybe it’s none of my business, but what’s a kid like you doing wandering Hyrule all alone?”

He was glad he’d had the foresight to prepare a lie. He needed to cover his tracks or he’d just be dragged right back home and yelled at. “I’m being sent to learn a trade,” He said, with such perfect eager innocence that he just had to be telling the truth. “I’m not so good at farming or anything like that, so I gotta make myself useful somehow. Or that’s what my dumb mom says anyway.”

There was an amused twinkle in the man’s eyes as he agreed. “Well, it’s tough out there in the big wide world. You’re frustrated now, but you’ll thank her later, honest. What’re you thinking?”

“Something easy.”

“Nothing’s easy if you really want to be good at it.”

“...Blacksmith, then. If I’m gonna work I’m gonna get buff and make cool stuff.”

“See, there’s an idea. Put your heart into it, and then when you go back to your family you’ll have something great to show them.” There was a shout from outside- a greeting, it sounded like- and the man ruffled his hair and stood. “The customers are rolling in, I’d better be off now. Good luck with your trade, young man, and be safe in your travels.”

He wished the same to the man, for whatever that might be worth, gathered his meager belongings and with the (embarrassing) guidance of the stablehand’s wife mounted his horse. The tack wasn’t new, but it was gently used and well cared for, and smelled like dust and leather and rain. The saddle horn served its purpose as a map stand as he oriented himself, and nudged the horse into a trot; galloping would be later, when he actually knew what he was doing. Death Mountain loomed tall and threatening on the horizon, but in a strange irony it was sort of comforting, his own road sign to Akkala. Foothill Stable would always be there to help him if he took a wrong turn, anyway. 

He took his lunch in the shade of a tree west of a small mountain named Crenel Peak, if he’d read the map correctly, and rested for a pleasant moment- and woke to find it was night, the moon already high. His unnamed horse was wandering off, tired of grazing and longing for more activity, and he shook off his fatigue and chased after it. All his stuff was in those saddlebags, and the horse was his only way of transportation, and if it got lost or hurt he was done for.

The way it was going was a dead end, though, with a little pond tucked away there- no place for his horse to escape, he thought, cheerfully, and went to refill his water skin. He’d need to boil it, he knew, but that could wait for a little while longer.

Suddenly he was aware of another presence.

It was a subtle noise, subtle shifts in the atmosphere, but he was sure that he was no longer alone. And, he thought, there was no place for him to escape, now.

“A sheikah child,” Said a voice, raspy and definitively not friendly. “What is a sheikah child doing out here all alone?”

He turned, to stare into the impassive mask of a Yiga Clan soldier.

“Traveling,” He replied, with as much confidence as he possibly could, which wasn’t much in present circumstances.

“So young,” They said, sounded disdainful, and approached in a way that almost slithered. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous out here?”

“I’ve been told.”

“Where do you come from, little sheikah? Your guardians must be terribly neglectful if they’ve let you wander so far.” Something about the voice reminded him of a man he’d seen in the stable.

“I’m from Kakariko.” It was not in his best interests to say that. But he figured he’d be dead soon anyway, or close to it. “And I snuck out. I didn’t wanna be there anymore.”

That caught the soldier’s interest; he couldn’t see through the mask, but he could tell there was a grin spreading there. “Snuck out, hmm? Why ever would you do that?”

This was his window, he knew. It was this, or it was death. “I was sick of it there,” He said, not entirely untruthful, “They’re annoying and stupid and I want to be somewhere else.”

“Well,” Said the Yiga, slow and deliberate, “I just may have an offer for you, then, little sheikah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and to him i say: good luck. you've no idea what you're in for.


	3. a change of scenery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit more formal in its style, but i promise things go back to regular low quality character tone narratives soon. also extremely short. i'll probably post another soon to make up for that.

Hateno is a much different place from Hebra.

Hebra is cold, unforgiving; the sun is bright and relentless, the snow frequent and heavy, the conditions miserable at best. The air is dry, hurts his throat and cracks his skin, makes his eyes sting with tears every time he goes outside to face the day. But it’s a beautiful place- the snow shimmers like a blanket of little diamonds, and the icicles that drip off the trees and the houses catch the light and split it into rainbows on the ground. The sky is a brilliant blue, and the blurry slate gray of the mountains loom in the distance, dangerous and majestic.

It’s here that he grows up, for the first seven years of his life: in a little house nestled up by the Hebra Headsprings. It’s where he’s born, and raised, by his older sister and, for a time, by his mother. He learns how to survive here, in the place where the snow will swallow you given the chance, where the devil may care and the sun may forget your face. He learns to light fires off damp wood, to fish in iced-over waters, to survive avalanches, to cultivate crops even in below-zero temperatures. He learns to plant windshields around buildings, like the ring of pines that protects their home, to seal off windows and cracks in the walls that let precious heat escape. He learns to hunt in snow, to track during blizzards, to walk in waist-deep slush without sinking in, to make cold-proof clothes. He learns to treat frostbite without losing anything, to stave off and to survive hypothermia, to identify the local medicinal flora. The most fun of it all is learning to surf on a shield, to glide down a mountain trusting only your shield and your reflexes to carry you safely.

He lives in the snow and the cold and he learns to thrive in it, comes to love every second of it, even when it finally takes his mother, weak from childbirth and the rigor of life in the climate, carried on to the afterlife by a common illness. That’s when his sister, his favorite woman left to him, decides to enlist the help of a kindly rito, and pack up and leave to someplace easier. The rito is a family friend of theirs, has known them since they were infants, and he offers them his guidance now, advises them on where to go and how to get there, what to bring and what to do once they’ve arrived. He even accompanies them on their journey, wary of the land, borrows them a horse and helps them pack, even gives them money (under the pretense of purchasing their cabin).

Hateno is very much the opposite of Hebra. They secure a small house with the money they’ve been given, and all seems well. But it’s so  _ different _ , and nothing Red has learned in Hebra helps him here. The climate is different, the clothes are different, the people are different,  _ life _ is different. It means relearning his entire life.

And he does; slowly, at first, but he finds himself taking to it quickly after they’ve settled, enjoying the easygoing lives the natives seem to lead. They live enclosed by cliffs, protected by the land, in a partial rain shadow from Mount Lanayru; they take their water and their fish from the lakes and the streams, and flooding is hardly a threat. And the winters are so  _ mild _ , hardly ever dipping below ten degrees, never much snow, always a tepid breeze drifting up from Kitano Bay. He sits outside and does his work, and laughs when the natives come out all bundled in layers and shivering- if you want winter you should visit Hebra, he says, and they all shake their heads and go to find a fire.

Hateno becomes a second home to him, and its residents a second family; they check in on the two Hebran children, invite them for dinners and celebrations and holidays. He likes to think that he and his sister fit in well, him and the girl named for the latent princess. When another newcomer moves in, purchases the house overlooking Firly Pond, he shows him around and gives him the same welcome he’d received as a child, and they become friends quickly, and they learn a lot from one another. Vio is his name, a half-sheikah not much older than himself, serious but easygoing and, frankly, very much in contradiction to all the things he’s heard about the sheikah over the years.

Vio comes and goes throughout the months- a merchant, he calls himself, but seems so young for it- but he stays for the winters, when it’s too cold and too dangerous to be going much of anywhere (which Red can’t help but laugh at). They spend time together, then, the three of them, drinking warm milk with honey and exchanging stories. He’s generous with them, whether out of kindness or obligation, and offers his surplus to them,  introduces them to sheikah meals they’ve never heard of and offers an extra bed when the wet season comes and their roof springs a leak.

They find very quickly that the sheikah are not all that they have been made out to be, and at the same time so much more.


	4. initiation, in ways more than just the obvious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wish i had something quirky to say about all this, but i'll let you come up with something yourself and then pretend i put it here.

Finding a place among the Yiga is not as difficult as one might think, which, admittedly, is alarming. Of course, it’s somewhat of a comfort as well, because if he can’t make it with them then there are going to be issues. But it’s still alarming. They’re supposed to be terrible, terrible people, ruthless and vicious and indiscriminate in their crimes- or so he’s heard it said. And nothing he’s seen really contradicts that. They take a sick sort of joy in their assignments, and he’s heard some of them placing bets on how many people they can take out before week’s end. He’s even seen personal lists of kills tacked to members’ doors. And there’s more, much more, but between the training and the grunt work around the headquarters he hasn’t gotten a chance to really give it close consideration, or really look into it more than superficially.

But it’s initiation, which should mean a sort of graduation from the stupid little housekeeping tasks they have him on. That’s what he was told, anyway, and to their credit they haven’t lied to him yet, or at least not that he’s aware of. Which is a kind of honesty in and of itself, if you don’t know about the lie.

He’s been told very little about the whole affair, and has no clue what to expect. It’s probably to keep an air of novelty and excitement about the new recruits, which he can respect, grudgingly, but he also has no way to prepare. It could include a test- they’ve certainly been teaching him enough to do that. Most of it was just weapons handling, and he was okay at that; not excellent, but not bad, except he just couldn’t get the hang of the double shot, so he suspects he isn’t going to be assigned as an archer. There was some stuff about magic as well, very confusing stuff, considering he’s never been able to wield it in his life. Upon asking, all he’d been told was that it was further down the line. 

Initiation is very likely the  _ down the line _ they were referring to, he thinks. Really, what’s the point otherwise- if they don’t start him soon he doesn’t think he’ll ever understand. He’s already forgotten most of what they instructed him on.

Absently, he wonders why they haven’t bothered giving him a change of clothes. It only makes sense to- why would they want someone representing the sheikah in a clan sworn against them? But he supposes it’s a way of marking the uninitiated from those who have already given their pledges, backwards as the decision seems. He’s not going to be the one to question Kohga. He values his life.

He does decide against the outerwear of his usual outfit. It’s getting small again, and it’s already stuffy in the caverns; it’ll be unbearable with everyone clustered in the commons.

He’ll be getting an angry footsoldier threatening to break his door down if he doesn’t get a move on soon, this he knows from personal experience, and so, reluctantly, he steps out of his quarters, and shuts the door behind him. Truthfully he doesn’t like coming out very much. Someone’s always up to something that he’d rather not be a part of, and he hears some things he’d rather not know.

The walk only makes his nerves worse. Every little thing he’s ever heard about cults comes racing through his mind, the weird rituals, animal sacrifice,  _ human _ sacrifice, and he has some second and third and fourth thoughts about the whole thing and, for good measure, he has a fifth. But it isn’t like he can just leave. These sorts of things just don’t work that way.

So he braces himself, steels his nerves (it doesn’t work, but it’s worth a try) and picks up the pace. Better to get it done with- the night won’t move any faster if he’s dragging his feet.

There are few other recruits standing outside the doors to the chamber, which means there’s going to be a lot of attention on each of them, and he doesn’t think he likes that prospect very much. “Slow recruitment season,” they’d told him. Somehow he thinks it’s always a trickle, but then, their feeder group is a single and admittedly small race, so it’s only to be expected. 

Their little group’s overseer is an archer, tall and lanky, with a sour disposition that’s gotten them into more than one spat, and he’s barking orders to a few of the members impatiently.

Only marginally more collected, he turns to all four of them and gives them what he thinks is perhaps the most vague and brief explanation of anything he’s ever heard. “You’ll be going in individually. Follow the carpet up to the Master’s seat. You’ll be instructed there.” And he goes right back to ignoring them and being a generally unpleasant person and, he thinks, leaves them with more questions than they’d had before.

They take it upon themselves to arrange themselves in order, and of course it’s by age, and he gets shoved to the back with a sneer. He puts up an air of being displeased and angry about it, but he’s actually very relieved, because if he’s the very last, it may be that he can catch at least little bits of what’s going on.

It’s a long time before the first gets called in, and even longer before the second does, and an eternity before the third. Each time the doors crack open slightly, just barely enough for a person to squeeze through, and there’s several people behind them to block the view of the room beyond, and so his plan is effectively ruined.

He’s dangerously close to a blind panic when the doors open for the fourth and final time, and a trio of members call him forward. The archer takes it upon themself to give him a hearty shove in the right direction, and they follow him in and close the doors behind them with a very final-sounding slam.

There are a lot of eyes on him. That’s the first thing his brain registers, and perhaps the least convenient. Of course, the eyes are hidden behind masks, but they’re there and the masks also have eyes, a very unnerving thing. The three members seem to be almost an honor guard for him; they usher him forward, and vaguely he recognizes at least one as one of his instructors, and ironically one of the people he hates most there. They walk, slowly, a solemn and kind of annoying pace, and it gives him time to observe the room. Hangings cover the walls now, crimson and black and splashed with white, and tapestries that he recognizes as mostly depicting either Ganon or Kohga and, on some occasions, both. Torches are absolutely everywhere- explains why it’s so hot (that and a few other things)- and he thinks derisively that while a few make for a good occult-ish atmosphere, they’ve really gone and overdone it.

His guard flakes off one by one, to places along the sides, and the crowd closes in behind him, the final recruit of the night, and he’s never been particularly claustrophobic but he wishes they’d back off a little. There’s an altar a little ways in front of the Master’s seat, and he figures that’s where he’s meant to stop; he does, a little ways away, in part because he supposes it’s respectful and also because there’s a very big needle on it and he doesn’t like needles much.

“The last of our newest,” Kohga says, in his booming voice (which he knows to be reserved for special events only- his usual voice is really kind of sad). A cheer rises from the crowd, brief but enthusiastic, charged with eagerness and something else he can’t quite place. “I will not refer to you by your given name, for you are no longer a part of the people who gave it to you. Tonight you step forward into a new light- our light- and in doing so you are of us. You will receive a new name, known only to those of us here in the room this night. I request that the lead instructor of this boy- or rather, this  _ man _ \- come forward, and bestow upon him his title.”

It’s the one he doesn’t like that comes forward, just his luck. He doesn’t remember the guy’s name, but he recognizes the arrogance in the walk and the tone. “I have conferred at length with this boy’s other teachers,” He says, haughty and authoritative, “And we give him the name of Shadow, that he might be our shadow in the night with which to strike.”

Kohga nods- his demeanor suggests he very much approves of it and, though he wants to disagree with it on principle, he has to admit that it’s a pretty cool thing to be called.

“Then you will be Shadow among us,” He says, waves to the other man, and with a bow he moves back among the crowd. And he heaves himself from his seat, comes down the stairs and stops at the altar directly opposite him. Someone brings a package wrapped neatly in stained leather; Kohga accepts it, and sets it down between them. “This is your gear, and your mask. It is a mark of your belonging here; take care of it.”

Shadow goes to reach for it, but a gesture from Kohga stills his hands. “Now,” He says, and he takes the needle in hand and suddenly Shadow would like to be anywhere else, “As the sheikah mark theirs, so we brand ours. You may choose where, so long as it is someplace visible for inspection.”

He knows the face is a traditional location. He immediately dismisses that. He isn’t trusting anyone with a needle that big near his eyes. His hand’s a no, too sensitive, and his leg is also no, because he doesn’t want to have to keep it up on that altar, and there’s also a big artery there if he remembers right, and neck skin is too thin to be safe. And he wants to be able to watch him working (just in case) so no back, and stomach would just be weird, and that doesn’t leave much real estate.

So, he figures, the forearm would work just fine, and says so, rolls up his sleeve and hesitantly lays it between them. Bite the arrow, so to speak, and get it over with.

He doesn’t know what they use as ink, doesn’t bother asking- all he knows is that it’s a weird pink-red and it  _ hurts _ , the needle’s sting is bad enough but the ink  _ burns _ and it takes far, far too long for him to finish. It’s a big tattoo, or at least by his standards, takes up half the length of the back of his forearm and the entire width, and the skin around it is red and raw and aching by the time he puts the needle down for good. 

He wants, badly, to be through with it, looks for the three that’d been with him and sees none, but perhaps they’re just in uniform now. 

“One last thing,” Kogha says, and pulls from under the altar cloth what seems to be a chalice of a sort, and suddenly he can’t see- they’ve blindfolded him. “The final step, and you will be one of us. Drink what is in this cup. An act of blind faith, you might say, just a small test of loyalty. This and then it is over.”

It’s pressed into his hand, and the metal is cold and unyielding against his lips. Whatever’s in there smells terrible- like dirt and rot, with a sour undertone that he can only think to describe as metallic. And it tastes worse, his only comfort is that it doesn’t taste quite like blood, and hardly gets that whole thing down without retching it back up.

Then he really can’t see, and it isn’t because of the blindfold, and suddenly he can’t feel anything either, and there’s nothing.

Is he dead? He thinks he might be.


	5. not all who wander, but, perhaps, just this one (a vagrant)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is for u Apocalypse-Mage ur comment gave me the strength to edit this to post today

Lurelin is a nice, quiet village, in a nice, quiet corner of Hyrule. It’s out of the way, hardly touched by the wars, and its resources are abundant and its people welcoming. It’s a good place to move when you’ve had enough, seen enough, a good place to move when you’re old, a good place to move when you’re expecting children. 

It’s not as great a place to grow up in, as a child, and especially not as a restless one.

She’s perfectly content with it at first, as young children are. There’s a lot of beach to explore, and a lot of sea to sail and to swim, and there’s even talk of ruins somewhere on the northeast bay. There’s plenty to learn, too. They’re a fishing village, so of course she has to learn how to fish, and she learns to spearfish more specifically, which for a while brings her endless joy. Once she’s more practiced she even takes to spearing the fruits down from the palms that dot their shores, and when it’s spawning season and fishing is a bad idea she gets to spearing the seafowl as well.

It’s nice and slow there, and every day’s activities are for subsistence, so there’s no shortage of things to be doing. They weave baskets, carve new spears, hollow new boats, and when they get more cotton and wool in they spin new sails and clothes and sheets. The problem is, it’s the same stuff. Every day. For years.

And she asks, so many times, to go beyond the limits they are given. To try a new shore- oh, but there’s reports of a live crawler up there, better not. To sail a little further- but the oceans are rough and the winds temperamental and not predictable enough to rely on. To venture west, to the jungle, for new things- but there are so many bad things lurking there, and it’s so  _ far _ besides. With a group, she offers, a lot of us so it’s safer, and we won’t be very long. We can’t afford that, they tell her, too much risk, very little reward, and we get what we need here, why bother with the jungle when we’ll be getting the import in a few weeks?

It gets so that she drafts her arguments before she presents them, prepares them carefully and meticulously and anticipates every single little thing they could possibly bring against her. There are so many reasons to be going, and every time she brings a new one with her. So  _ many _ . And they accept none. Not a one. Sometimes they don’t even dignify her with a decent rebuttal. It’s just “because” and “run along now, dinner’s near the docks and they’ll need help unloading”.

She loves them, her family here. But she’s very much sick of them.

The import comes, as it always does, twice a year, and she’s set to the arduous task of preparing everything for storage. There’s cloth, crops from other regions, supplies they can’t get in their little slice of the world. Innocently, she needles the merchant as they work. Asks where these things are all from, how does he like his work, how does he go about it, how one might pursue the same.

Though she doesn’t get all of the answers she’d like, she does get the important ones. She isn’t stupid enough to fly totally blind.

She may as well be, though, she thinks, and watches as the lights of the village’s torches flicker out. There’s a gentle drizzle, and the valley she’s heading through is closed in and the moon isn’t high enough to help her. It’s difficult, but she needs the cover; they wake early, and she’ll be discovered too soon to waste time.

Not for the first time, she wishes for a horse. That merchant wouldn’t give his up for anything, and she didn’t want to put her family in bad faith by stealing it, so that left her agonizing foot travel, with only a handful of hours to get as far as possible. Lakeside is her goal, at the very least- it’s still too close, but it’s a checkpoint, and from there it’s bound to be easier.

As it is she’s traveling light. A few meals, a spare set of clothes, her spear and a heavy pot lid she supposes will serve as a shield for now. No map, but she can get one at the stable- no clue where she’s really headed for, but if there’s one thing she’ll have, it’s time. 

The drizzle doesn’t relent; it doubles back to hit her with a hard rain, and her pot lid becomes an umbrella, and she finds herself running. Where the valley opens she can see something that looks like a shelter, and starts toward it, and stops when she hears screeching: bokoblins, something she isn’t going to bother with, especially when it’s pouring.

And the rain doesn’t relent, or at least not until she’s gotten far enough that it doesn’t matter. She’s at Floria just as the sky starts burning gold and copper, soaked and shivering but triumphant. There are some scattered keese fluttering around, but when dawn breaks they’ll find someplace to sleep, and she’s sure that if they bother her she can just swat them away.

Most of the bridge has no rails, which unnerves her for reasons she can’t explain. It’s ten times worse when the winds kick up, halfway across, and she takes a moment to steel her nerves, deep breaths because she is  _ not _ scared of heights and she is going to be  _ fine _ , and she opens her eyes to see a dragon slithering from behind the curtain of the falls. 

Slithering isn’t the right word, but there’s no other one apt to describe it; the dragon snakes from nowhere, seemingly, silver and brilliant, almost blinding yellow-white. She’s heard of it before, or she thinks she has, the divine creature for whom the region was named: Farosh, if she’s got it right. It doesn’t acknowledge her on its ascent, arcing over the bridge with an easy, weightless grace, and there’s little shocks of lightning jumping through its scales, pooling at its horn, and it’s the only time she’s ever been able to say she was absolutely breathless.

Something falls from it as it passes by. She’s worried something’s hurt it, a ridiculous thought, because it’s a  _ dragon _ , but all the same she goes to investigate, makes a last-second catch and whatever it is nearly shocks her into dropping it into the lake far below. Literally shocks her- she tosses it onto the wood before she can help it and tries to shake the sting off her fingers. Wary, now, she kneels, to examine the thing. 

It’s a scale, by the shape and texture of it, that same radiant grayed off-yellow, struck through with cracks that remind her, appropriately, of lightning. Farosh’s  _ scale _ , one of them, and it had just dropped it and she’s just caught it. Awed and just a little dumbstruck, she scoops it into her bag, preparing for another shock but doesn’t get one. The value of a thing like this is probably incredible, and to her unknown, but she would rather keep it that way than put it at risk.

Maybe it’s an omen, she thinks as she walks into the stable.

Sure feels like it, because she gets her horse and her map and her gear without a hitch.

“Just drop him at the next stable you come across, and they’ll return him in due time. Who’s registering?”

“Blue.”

“Twenty, then, Blue, and you’ll get half back when he’s boarded safely.”

More than she’d like to part with, but it’s necessary, and now she’s got this scale to fall back on, so she forks it over, and kicks the gelding into a gallop like the Calamity’s after her. 

With a horse, reaching the Highland Stable isn’t a problem- the monsters are annoying, but they’re easily ignored once the gelding’s trampled them into the dirt, and she finds herself very much liking this horse. The real problem lies in getting one of her own.

“They’re there for the taking,” Says the stablehand as she returns the gelding, lamenting about transportation. “As long as you can get on ‘em they’re yours.”

She can’t, though, or not at first, and sits sulking by the fence with her meal.

“You,” She says, when a man on a horse approaches, “How’d you get that?”

He looks startled. “Get what?”

“The horse.”

“I raised her from a foal.”

She huffs a frustrated breath. “Well, thanks for nothing.”

“May I ask why you want to know?”

“‘Cause I need a horse and I can’t get one.”

He has the nerve to  _ laugh _ at her. “How have you been going about it? It requires some patience.”

She shrugs, exaggerated and angry, and points to the gray one leading the herd to the vernal pool to drink. “I go over and hope I’m fast enough.”

He shakes his head, tethers his horse to the fence. “No, you would need to be much quieter. It is about surprise.” For a moment, he’s quiet, digging through the saddlebag for something, then comes up with a flask. “Why is it that you need one? Surely you did not make it here without.”

“I borrowed. I’m, uh. I’m running off I guess, but I can’t make it far if I’m just walking.”

She half expects some sort of lecture from him- he seems the type- but he just thinks it over. “I may be able to get one,” He says, finally.

“I don’t need help.”

He shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

She does need help, she finds, because it’s fast approaching twenty-four hours since she’d left and they’ll catch up if she doesn’t get out of here. By some stroke of luck she catches the guy on the way out, and because she’s been rehearsing how to ask for an hour now, manages the task with minimal embarassment.

“You said you did not want help.”

“Okay, well, I do now, ‘cause I need it if I’m ever getting out of here. Don’t make me steal yours.”

“She would throw you.”

“I can sure as hell try.”

He rolls his eyes at that, but concedes, and hangs his things on the saddle horn. “You said it was which?”

The ruthless efficiency with which he gets it is a little alarming.  _ She _ hardly even knows he’s gotten close until he’s pulled himself atop the horse, and she watches it buck, and knows that she’s dodged a serious arrow here, because she would have been thrown in an instant. She knows to sail boats, not tame horses.

There’s this irritating smug smile on his face as he guides it back, and even offers to pay half the stable fee for her.

“What’s your motive?” She demands, but he only shrugs at her as she mounts.

“You say you are running away. I figure you need the help. In any case, it cannot be easy.”

Though she wants to argue that, she can’t, and tries to come up with something as they leave. “I’m gonna be honest, I’ve got no idea where I’m going from here. I have like two more meals and a map and maybe fifteen rupees. Suggestions?”

“There is Hateno. I live there, along with a few friends. It may be easiest.”

“Now hold on,” She says, wary suddenly, “Don’t tell me this is some sort of nice guy scheme to get me back to your house. I’m armed.”

And he laughs at that too, and she’s just a little bit itching to hit him. “Not at all. I do not even know your name. But it may serve to stay there for a little while until you know where you want to go.”

“If you try anything I’ll actually stab you.”

“I do not doubt that.”

“...I’m Blue.”

“Vio.”

“You never even asked why I left.”

“If you wanted to share you would have.”

“It’s ‘cause I got bored of living there.”

“Do not tell me this is some sort of sob-story scheme to get me to be your psychiatrist.”

Despite herself, she smiles. “So who’re these friends of yours anyway?”

“Two siblings from the Hebra region. Zelda and Red. They are really very kind people.”

“Zelda? Like the princess Zelda?”

“She is named after her, or so I am told. The name is fitting, most of the time.”

“Most of the time.”

“Sometimes she does not act the part. She is a very good pickpocket. But you cannot tell her I said that to you or she will kill me.”

It sounds like a good deal, she thinks, if this Vio guy is being honest and isn't trying to lure her into something. Of course, if he is, she can gut him in half a second, which isn't a problem. But she's hoping she won't have to. 

So they travel the few days it takes to get to Hateno, and she has to admit that she is just a little surprised when he turns out to be entirely honest about the whole thing. There’s no extra room, per se, but he sleeps in the loft, and he curtains it off and brings in a futon for her to sleep on until they can find her a real bed.

It’s meant to be a starting point, someplace temporary until she knows where she wants to go, but she quickly finds that she doesn’t much want to go anywhere. Except to maybe her own house in the town. She’s found someplace she  _ fits _ , and people not near identical to her in everything, and best of all she can do what she wants. 

But eventually she does go back to Lurelin, because she feels guilty. It eats at her- they didn’t do anything  _ wrong _ , necessarily. She’d just wanted a change of scenery. A change of pace.

She’s tempted to ask someone along with her, but it feels wrong, somehow. It had been her decision, no one else’s, and it seems only right to resolve it herself.

Whatever she’s expecting to happen when she gets there, she’s caught off-guard. There’s no anger- she’d expected a lot of that, for sure- no long-winded lectures, no interrogation. Just a lot of worried smiles and happy tears (even on her part, though she’ll never admit it), and she gets a lot of questions about what she’s gotten up to, and she thinks she can see jealousy in their eyes as she answers. And because they’re family, and she can trust them, she even tells them about the scale, and they’re just as awestruck as she was if not even more so. It’s a sign, they say, and someone takes it- for a moment she’s panicked- and they bring it back, cradled in a wire netting in a way that looks suspiciously like a necklace.

Evidently it is; they drape it around her neck, fasten it in the back, and she gets a dozen admonishments to keep it close and keep it safe.

As she lays in bed that night, in  _ her _ bed, one she’d slept in for sixteen years, it only then sets in how much she’d missed them.


	6. give a little, take a little

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which shadow is a work in progress with his magic, and is shoved headfirst into several less-than-ideal situations in quick succession

It’s hardly fair to call him incompetent. He's been official for all of two weeks now, and he's been actually  _ practicing  _ magic for an even shorter time. A week. One week, seven days, to master this entire  _ art _ of trying to wield magic, and he takes eight and suddenly he's the scum of the earth. 

    “I haven't been seeing the other recruits doing much better,” He snaps, finally, perhaps a poor decision but one that was bound to happen. Actually, he hasn't really been seeing the other recruits do very much at all. They’re members now, he has to remind himself, so maybe they've just been given over to another division (somehow that answer doesn't seem like the right one).

    “How they fare against you is not your concern,” The commander snaps right back. “You ought to be focused on how well  _ you _ are performing. Which is not very well at all.”

    “Then give me more than a week to figure this shit out!”

    “A week was all I was allowed, and I managed just fine. You are slow and foolish. It was a mistake to induct you.” Something hits Shadow- he doesn't bother to look, because he knows the guy just used magic. “Again, little fool. It is only fifty yards.”

    “Yeah, well,  _ you're _ only five. Think I could get  _ you _ ?”

    “You could not hit the broad side of Hyrule Castle.”

    Shadow sneers. He wants so  _ badly _ to get back at him for all the times he's done the same, but all that will get him is a lot of resentment and some probation, and he's not so eager to be making waves this soon in. “What _ ever _ ,” He mutters, and tries again, and this time the dummy on the far end of the cavern is torn to shreds.

    He pushes down the elation he feels and turns to the commander, smiling as acidically as he knows how to. “Wanna say that again?”

    “A lucky shot,” Is all the man grants him. “Again. You are not taking your break until you have perfected it.”

    There's a line of dummies he's got to work through, and then the second row, and he's already tired and all he wants is to go lay down. “When do I get to practice against a real person? Someone said something about sparring.”

    “Sparring comes later. You cannot be trusted to fight an ally non-lethally in your state. Pathetic, really, but I suppose that this is what it comes to, these days.”

“And when do I get to spar  _ you _ ?”

“When you are actually good at it.”

He bites back what he’d like to say and tries to focus; half a dozen of the ragdolls are eviscerated, spilling sand onto the floor, and for a moment he indulges in imagining the dolls as this stupid nameless commander.

The man cuffs him on the back of the head, a little too hard to be anything less than malicious. “One at a time, I said, or are you stupid? At this rate we will be here through tomorrow.”

“Sorry for being  _ efficient, _ ” Shadow says, bitingly polite, and the next try neatly decapitates the last of the first row.

If nothing else, Shadow does have to concede that the guy’s constant  _ bitching _ keeps him on target, mostly because he gets angry and then the anger fuels whatever it is that helps him control the magic. Maybe that’s the whole point of it, but he takes a little too much pleasure in his job if that’s the case.

He’s hungry and exhausted by the end of it, and goes to leave, relieved, and then the commander calls him back and orders him to repair the dummies. With magic. Which he argues, because they’ve taught him to break but not to fix, and the commander, ever a helpful one, says only “figure it out or you aren’t eating”.

So he sits there fuming for a good half hour, and quickly figures out that whatever is going to help, it isn’t going to be getting pissy. He tries to remember what they’d done back in Kakariko- a thought that he shouldn’t have but comes anyway. To his credit, he thinks, he tries very hard to relax. That doesn’t work very well, so he tries at least to think some more decent thoughts, and if it isn’t perfect at least it gets him somewhere; the stitching on the dummy’s neck has loosely rethreaded itself, though not enough to keep anything on it.

Better thoughts are, admittedly, difficult to come by. He clings to what he has, what he remembers, and when he’s through the dummies are by no stretch of the imagination perfect, but they’ll serve, and he’s starving.

However, and he feels he should have expected this, he is once more denied dinner.

“You are busy,” The commander says, and all but shoves him out of the dining hall, where everyone (but him!) is enjoying their meals. “You have been given an assignment.”

One week. One week, seven days, hardly familiar with magic, and he’s given an assignment, at dinner, before he’s eaten. “Okay, well, someone must have screwed up, ‘cause there’s no way  _ that’s  _ happening.”

“It is.” Shadow can hear the scowl in his voice. “You are to be given further instructions at the exit. Get moving.”

Shadow would like to say a thousand million choice things to him, but instead, very maturely, goes to get dressed in what he assumes is the appropriate gear. It’s the same for everything, so it must be, at least, and whoever’s waiting for him doesn’t seem displeased by it. The person doesn’t see it fit to greet him, or actually to speak at all- they hand him a paper, and leave in a flash of light and a flurry of the little calling cards everyone seems to like to leave. Which is very unnecessary, considering the entrance is literally ten feet from where they were standing.

It swings shut behind him, once more an innocuous slab of rock, and he’s left to decipher whatever’s scrawled on the paper by the little torchlight that’s left to him. A location, a person described, and a note detailing where he’ll find a backup weapon, clearly an afterthought by the way it’s squeezed in the margins.

He supposes this is meant to practice his magic, or something, which is pretty much a really big problem because they haven’t told him how to teleport or whatever yet, and this place is halfway across the goddess-damned continent. Briefly, he tries to bang on the entrance to get some help, but stops quickly because he is slamming his fists against solid rock and generally causing himself more pain than it’s worth.

If skipping one meal is bad, this is going to be hell, he thinks as he starts his trek. There’s such a long way to go, and he’s got no idea how he’s going to get there, or even how he’s going to  _ survive _ the way there in his current condition. He could really go for a nap, at least, because his feet are dragging in the dust, and he knows he can’t travel an entire country on foot without at least a little sleep.

He’s so out of it, in fact, that he fails to notice the sand lizal half-burrowed in his path, and trips very inconveniently over its tail and goes sprawling into the silt, which is not near as soft as it looks. At first he thinks it's a rock, goes to get up and kick it for daring to trip him, but to his surprise the rock gets up and oh it’s not a rock at all.

It’s a  _ wonderful _ situation, because he’s got no weapon and no shield, hardly any armor and he’s too panicked to use magic, and he’s sure that he’s going to be killed right here, half a mile from HQ on his very first assignment. The thing’s got a spear, from Hylia-knows-where, and it’s jumping at him with the spear poised to skewer his throat, and his last thought is of the foot of the peak he’d been found at, and how much he regrets ever having gone there.

To his great and pleasant surprise, he is not skewered. He is completely and totally unharmed, actually, but it feels different; the air is warm and humid, not at all like the dry, crisp air he’d walked out into, and he feels grass beneath him, not sand. When he opens his eyes he sees trees, fields, a mountain (a glorified hill), and is suddenly very suspicious, because he is very sure that he wasn’t here a second ago. But when he gives it a moment, looks around, he recognizes it as Crenel Peak, the exact spot he’d thought of in the moment before he’d nearly been killed.

It’s the first and last thing he expects to be  _ it _ , because it seems so… obvious. But, he finds, it does in fact work, repeatedly, which would solve his problem if he knew what his target location looked like. As it stands he does not, and has been provided no description, save for the name. 

Actually, it isn’t that far from where he is now. Somewhere on the Trilby Plain, there’s supposed to be a little encampment, and he’s tasked with getting rid of one of its inhabitants. Just one, the paper says, and emphasizes that only the  _ one _ is to be taken out, and specifies multiple times  _ which _ one, and comes across as generally very irritating and unpleasant. He can walk to this place from where he is, though it may take a while, so he does, and tries to ignore his empty stomach. It’s only one person, in one little camp, how bad can it be?

It turns out to be very bad. The paper, stupid useless thing that it is, conveniently fails to mention that the camp is fortified, and there are more than just a few people in it. So easily he could just get them all out of his way, but the paper practically screams at him  _ just the one _ , and, for all his talk, he is very very nervous about the whole affair, mostly because he can’t recall ever killing anyone before.

The sentry sees him first, and for a moment does nothing; Shadow thinks that the guy thinks he’s a fellow traveler, but it turns out he just couldn’t see well, because the next moment he’s shouting for someone and dropping off the boulder he’s on, weapon drawn. Shadow stops, just for a second, because there’s something vaguely distantly familiar about it, but he just can’t put his finger on it. 

Stopping is a mistake. He gets an arrow to the leg.

Only a graze, really, but a terrifying one, and he blames that for his failure. It isn’t absolute, of course, his failure- he does get past that damned sentry guy, does manage to evade the others, but he doesn’t  _ kill _ the one person he’s supposed to. Sure, he gets a decent hit in. But he panics, because he finds himself surrounded by five people, all armed and he’s not, and he’s back at the entrance to HQ in half a second. He’d much rather be yelled at than dead.

The person he reports to seems only amused when he tells them what happened, which is irritating and relieving at the same time (resentment wins out, though).

“It was only a test,” They say, patronizing and smug, “To see how quickly you can figure things out independently. I’d say you did well, given you’re only a week in. We’ll get someone else to finish the job. You’re dismissed.”

All that, the fear and guilt and sliced leg, the blind panic of the whole affair, and he gets an  _ I’d say you did well _ and that’s all. He’s got some things to say to his stupid commander. They could have at least  _ warned  _ him, but it’s always secrets and condescension with them, nothing can ever be straightforward and open to him.

And, worst of all, he doesn’t even get dinner.


	7. there's safety in numbers (usually)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which green's anxiety is, for once, not entirely without reason.

There’s something to be said about places hedged in by cliffs and other generally inaccessible places.

Namely, that they suck.

If you’ve got the manpower to keep the length of the canyon watched, it’s certainly a great place to mount a defense. It’s been done before, many times in many places over the history of Hyrule. It’s happened even in the very spot he’d passed just a little while ago, the legendary Fort Hateno, site of a heroic last stand and the place where the Hylian Champion fell. Green, a known history enthusiast, had certainly spent more than his fair share of time poking through the ruins, examining the field littered with ruined guardians. None of them woke, to his great relief, and he spent longer than he thinks he probably should have looking at everything. He’d narrowly avoided detection by the monster encampment on Blatchery Plain, and, just to put some extra distance, had carried on traveling past sunset. Which, looking back on it, was not the right call to make, because currently he’s feeling incredibly not on board with the situation at all.

When he’s scared half to death by the greeting of an approaching traveler, he attributes it to this fact, and tries to think nothing else of it.

He returns the greeting, still on edge and, honestly, a little jittery. And, perhaps out of the primal pack mentality, asks, “Where are you headed?”

The other brings his horse to a stop- evidently he hadn’t planned on more than a passing hello. “Nowhere in particular. Doing my rounds, I suppose. You?”

A merchant, of course; he should have known from the saddlebags. “Oh, well, uh, I’m trying to get up to Hateno.”

There’s a hint of interest from the other man, or at least he thinks that’s what it is. “It is right up the way here. All you have to do is follow the path.”

“You’ve been?”

“Well, considering I live there, yes.”

Green is feeling very not right and generally out of sorts, and all he can manage is a sort of sad-sounding “oh.” He lingers for a moment, and then, to break the silence, “There’s just the one path, then, yeah?”

“Only one. It is near impossible to stray.” He gives him an odd look- something Green might call appraising, if his brain would pause a moment to allow him the vocabulary. “Something has put you off, it seems.”

A little sheepishly, he shrugs. “Wasn’t my best idea to keep on past sunset,” He admits, though he isn’t sure quite why. “I hear the monster populations have been rebounding along here.”

“I saw very few.”

“Even still.”

There’s something folded up on the man’s lap, and he glances at it, looks it over for a moment. “I could accompany you back up,” He offers, “Provided we make good time.”

It’s as good an offer as he’s going to get, Green supposes, and agrees with what he feels is an admirable amount of confidence. Something feels _off_ , but he doesn’t know what it is or even really how to describe it, so he elects not to mention it to the other. He’s sure the impression he’s made so far isn’t exactly the best, and he’d rather not make it worse.

“May I ask what it is that brings you to Hateno?”

“Work, mostly.” Green isn’t sure he’s going to get hired if word of this incident gets out. “I heard there’ve been problems down at the bay and I figured I could probably get a job fixing that.”

“That? The bay has been cleared already, I am afraid. You may want to find something else. I do not want you to waste your time.”

Green curses his luck- of course he gets here too late. And of course it isn’t that he wishes that there were more monsters, because that would be bad, but he wishes that there were more monsters because his job is suffering for lack of things to kill. “You wouldn’t need a guard, by any chance?”

There’s an amused smile on the man’s face and Green isn’t sure why. “No, I do not, but I appreciate the offer.”

“Sure?”

“I was the one to take care of our bay issue, so I think I am capable of holding my own.”

Ah. Competition, then. “So are you in the business?”

“It depends. I am not in the mercenary game, no, only a simple merchant.”

“A _simple_ merchant.”

“A simple merchant. With a few tricks up my sleeve. There is no competition between us.”

“I never said there was.” He did think it, though, and feels very relieved, because while he’s good with a sword he isn’t much of an archer, and this guy’s got a bow strapped to his back.

“It was assumed.”

There’s a silence, and Green isn’t much of a fan of long silences. They unnerve him (and especially in situations like these) and he doesn’t like to think that he’s put this other person off so quickly.

“So how long have you lived here,” He tries, because listening to the ambient sounds is really only making things worse.

“Several years. I bought a house here when I was sixteen.”

Green whistles, because these days the prices of actual stable houses are through the roof, so to speak. “How’d you get the funds for _that_?”

“I earned them, and I managed to catch a break from the seller. Which may have been because of how young I was. I was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, in any case.”

“Any family there?”

“No, but I have a few friends.”

“My family’s kinda split,” Green offers, thinking that this conversation shouldn’t be _all_ about the other guy, “I’ve got my dad in Necluda, and my mom’s in Gerudo Town.”

That seems to interest him, if nothing else. “Do you see her often? I hear men are not allowed within the walls.”

“They aren’t,” He agrees ruefully. “I can only go as far as that oasis on the way there. She sometimes meets me there, but I don’t see her much. I see my dad all the time, though.”

“Has he picked up the same occupation you have?”

“Well, he used to be in the military, but y’know, that’s kinda not a thing anymore. So he just runs a little farm. It’s a nice place.” He’d like to ask the same of the other, but he knows that that tends to be a tactless question these days, so he lapses into silence again.

Which is why it’s a wonder that they’re still taken by surprise.

There’s a little forested area surrounding the slope that leads up to the town- or that’s what the guy tells him it is, anyway. The path through is clear and fairly broad, but it isn’t well lit, and Green had _suggested_ a light but the other dude had waved him off, saying it was such a brief patch that they shouldn't bother with it, and they started down it and were promptly attacked. And Green is sure to point that out as the other man narrowly avoids a spear through the stomach, which he decidedly does not appreciate.

He slides off his horse- a poor choice in strategy, giving up the high ground, if anyone had asked Green- and it bolts, and tramples down a bokoblin on its way up the path.

In the lighting Green can’t be sure of how many there are, but there’s several, and they’re outnumbered for sure, which the other very helpfully notes. It’s too close-quarters for the bow, so the other unsheathes a shortsword hanging at his side- Green notes the conspicuous lack of shields.

Whoever this guy is, he’s fast, which Green thinks may be the reason for forgoing the shield (that, or stupidity). By the time he’s got his own things drawn, the other guy’s disarmed a bokoblin and is in the process of cutting it down. Feeling left behind and a little humbled, he sets his sights on the red one directly to his left.

And it goes surprisingly well, at first. Without extra gear to weigh him down, his companion (he refuses to think of it as the other way around) is out of the circle they’d been trapped in, and the bokoblins, too slow to understand the implications, return their attention to him. Of course, he does have a shield, which makes things infinitely easier, and he thinks he’s alone for a long moment but then one falls to an arrow, and then another, and then he has the good sense to duck before he can be taken out by accident.

And, because of _course_ this is how it goes, it’s the very last bokoblin that gets him, and it only does so a few seconds before the arrow knocks its lights out for good. The thing’s sword nearly hamstrings him- would have, actually, if he hadn’t been in the process of pulling away anyway.

He swears very loudly, realizes that he has and then swears again, more quietly, and settles down gingerly on the ground and tries to keep his (profusely bleeding) leg off the ground.

The other man, ever a fount of empathy and compassion, it seems, hauls him to his foot, slings his arm around his shoulders and prods him into walking (hopping), and says only “come on.”

“You’re not even gonna ask if I’m okay,” Green asks, thinly, torn between swearing at the man and just swearing in general.

“Clearly you are not, or do you think that I am blind? Your leg is injured. I am bringing you to the town to be treated.”

Green would very much like to argue the finer points of bedside manner, but he very maturely bites it back, largely because he thinks that if this gets any worse he’s going to start crying. He wishes desperately that the guy hadn’t let his horse run off, because by the time they reach the gates of town he’s about to collapse, can hardly keep his eyes open.

“Vio-” Green doesn’t recognize the voice, but of course he doesn’t, he supposes- “-what happened?!”

Ah, so the man’s name is Vio, he thinks, and, that mystery having been cleared up, promptly passes out.

He comes to in what he can only assume is someone’s house- it doesn’t look like an infirmary of any sort, which momentarily makes him question the sterility of the place.

“He’s awake,” Says a woman sitting by his bed, to someone ostensibly outside the door, and he recognizes the voice as the one he’d heard the night prior ( _was_ it the night prior?). She turns to him, then, and asks, a little brusquely, “You okay?”

“Considering I almost got my leg chopped off,” He replies, as falsely sweet as he can, “Dunno, guess I’m just _fantastic_.”

She stands, and doesn’t bother to grace him with a response. “Red, you get in here, I’m not in the mood to deal with asshole teenagers right now!”

Funny, Green thinks, because he’s got the impression that she’s of the same stock. But he doesn’t say that, partially because he feels he ought to be grateful and also because he values his life, and instead watches as she leaves and someone else comes in, and at least _he_ looks significantly friendlier.

“Hello,” He says, and sets down the bowl he’s carrying on the nightstand, “I’m sorry for Blue, she’s not acting herself today-” Someone mutters something that sounds a lot like _bullshit_ , and the guy (presumably Red) aggressively shushes them. “Anyway,” He continues, a little louder than he probably needs to, “My name’s Red, and that was Blue that was just in here. You know where you are, right?”

“Hateno, I think.”

Red nods. “Vio said he met you on your way here. I guess you were right about the monster problem, yeah?”

Green scoffs. “I wish I hadn’t been.”

He shrugs, and passes over the bowl, which Green finds to be a kind of clearish broth. “Well, it’ll get taken care of soon. He said he wanted to be sure you’d survive before he went out to scope the forest again.”

“You can go ahead and let him know I lived.”

“He’s not here right now, but I’ll be sure to tell him when he’s back.” He’s quiet a moment, then turns back to him and asks “What were you coming here for, anyway?”

He’d feel ridiculous trying to argue that he’s a monster hunter, so instead he gives a weak shrug and says “Just to visit.”

“Well, I’m sorry your visit started out this way. I promise it can only get better from here.”

“I sure hope so.” The way things are going, he doesn’t know that it will.


	8. the outset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the last chapter including events prior to the main story timeline! the next one will be real-time as far as the plot is concerned.

Shadow knows he’s being hunted. There’s no better word for it; he’s being tracked down, and they’re going to kill him once they find him (because they  _ will _ , it’s just a matter of time). They can’t let someone like him go, not once he’s been brought into their inner circle, not now that he’s spent so long among them. He could bring them ruin, complete and absolute, and all he has to do is find a capable person to spill to, and there’s no shortage of  _ those _ , times being what they are.

So they’re going to devote themselves to getting him. He’s caught them out looking, disguised as simple travelers and merchants, waiting in the shade by the side of the trail and watching. He wants so badly to go back to Kakariko, to tell them. But he can’t. They’re expecting that. It’s the natural place he’d go, back home (ouch) to tell the people most capable of taking them out. 

He makes sure to stay well away from Kakariko. He keeps the mere thought of the place out of his mind. They’ll strike the village- there have plans in the making for so long, too long- and they’ll kill everyone they can, and if they bring enough people that may well be  _ everyone _ . He isn’t going to sacrifice their lives for his own dumb stupid mistakes.

Of course, the situation has him very paranoid, and he’s on edge every waking moment, and he’s very scared of ever stopping, because they’ve got an uncanny way of  _ knowing _ . This small issue makes the present weather extremely inconvenient; he needs to keep moving, but it’d be plain stupid to be out wandering during a thunderstorm. The one thing he can call a benefit is that he doubts he’ll see anyone else, so he can maybe avoid attracting too much attention. There’s a shelter not too far up the road, if memory serves, and he guesses it’ll be okay to stop just for a couple hours and wait for it to blow over. Surely they won’t be active during an electrical storm.

This particular rationale makes the sight of distant firelight terrifying. It’s difficult to see through the sheets of rain pouring down, but he’s  _ sure _ it’s a fire, and it can’t be a natural one because it’d be out from the rain by now.

_ But _ the Yiga are never this obvious, and he’s down to one option, which is to say no options. So he hugs his bag to his chest and trudges through the sludge of the trail and prays that he isn’t going to regret this.

He very nearly does; he makes the rookie mistake of not calling out to the person before he barges into their shelter, and he narrowly avoids getting an arrow through his throat.

“Woah,” Says Shadow, because it’s the first thing that comes to his mind (and in fact the only thing).

It’s a long, terrifying moment before the guy puts his bow down, and he softens as he does. “You have my apologies,” He says, “I was expecting a monster of some sort.”

“It was my bad,” Shadow says, because he isn’t sure where he should go from here, “I should’ve said something.”

The guy eyes him for a second- no doubt judging him, and he can hardly blame him, knowing how he looks right now- and then he shoves a few of his bags closer to the horse (??) and pats the ground.

“You are welcome to sit,” He offers, “Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you could use a fire.”

Shadow’s all too eager to agree, and he dumps his bag on the ground and sits as close as he can to the fire and tries to still his shivering.

“I appreciate it,” He says, remembering his manners, “It’s cold as hell out there.”

The man shrugs it off and pokes at the fire, and it flares for a brief moment. “May I ask where you are coming from? Or going to?”

Lucky him: a question he’s prepared to answer. “I came from Akkala,” He lies, near effortlessly. He’s been rehearsing this kind of thing for weeks. “I’m not going anywhere in specific, though, just wandering. Looking for a good trade to settle into, y’know?”

“What kept you occupied before?”

“Odd jobs.” He’s very proud of himself for how smoothly he’s executing this. He isn’t exactly feeling it, but he’s performing it, and that’s (usually) good enough. “I stuck around with some friends, helped out with whatever they needed and they let me live with ‘em.”

The guy makes a sort of half-interested noise, and Shadow breathes a sigh of relief; he’s got some simple answers planned out, but not an entire fake life, and he’s pretty sure he couldn’t hold up under anything more than the barest social courtesies.

“Terrible weather,” The man says, after a particularly bright fork of lightning obliterates a tree not too far from them (followed by a particularly loud clap of thunder that scares the  _ hell _ out of him). “The skies were clear just a half-hour ago. The storm blew in quickly.”

Shadow hopes to hell that the guy didn’t see him jump half a foot in the air, and puts all his focus into wringing the water out of his overshirt, and pointedly does not make eye contact. “That’s why I got caught out in it,” He complains, “It was all just fine until it wasn’t.”

“That is the way of things,” The guy agrees, pulls his bag closer and goes digging through for something; he brings out a mess kit, and a cheesecloth bag of something. “Do you want something to eat?”

He’d like to be wary and aloof and turn him down- accepting food from strangers is, as far as he knows, a big no-no- but he’s starving and he’s got nothing of his own. He’d run out this morning and hadn’t had a chance since to get anything. 

“Do I have to buy it?”

“Usually I would say yes, but it is too miserable out for me to hassle you like that.”

“I’ll take whatever I can get, really,” He says, very sincerely, but the other seems to find it funny. Which really is fine, because he isn’t sure he wants to be taken too seriously under present circumstances.

“There is not much,” The man tells him, a little apologetically if he’s reading that right, “Which is part of the reason I am returning home now.”

“Where do you live?”

“Hateno.”

“That’s the town over by Kakariko, isn’t it,” He says, and then immediately realizes his mistake, and has half a mind to just get up and go walking right back out into the tempest.

If the guy realizes that the place is of any significance, he doesn’t show it, too busy cobbling together something to eat to give his full attention. “A little further to the east, but yes. Although I did live in Kakariko for a year or so. But that was quite a while ago.”

Shadow is, to say the least, confused, because to his knowledge no outsiders are allowed to live there. He decides to take a bit of a risk and, a little hesitantly, says “I didn’t peg you for a sheikah.”

“Well,” Says the man, and sounds just a bit like a nerve’s been struck, “I am only half sheikah, so that may be why.”

Shadow makes a face. He can’t remember people from the village very well, but he tries to think back to  _ who _ this guy is, and comes up with nothing. Vaguely he can recall talk of a half-blood, back when he was very very young, but it wasn’t something they brought up often. For a brief moment he considers asking whether the guy’s seen him before, but if he brings that up and the guy does recognize him then he may be in for a very awkward (and potentially fatal) conversation.

“Although,” The man says, after a pause, “If I am not mistaken, you are sheikah. Why are you coming from Akkala?”

Ah, fuck.

“I moved.” If he falters this is over, he can tell. “Kinda keeping an eye out, and I help out the guy at the lab up there sometimes.” He remembers that there’s a sheikah lab up in the far northeastern reaches of Akkala, and that part is plausible enough, but the problem is, if he’s asked for details or even the guy’s name then he won’t be able to answer, and if this guy’s familiar even a little with the place then he’s sunk.

But what the man says is “Makes sense.” And it isn’t even a sarcastic  _ makes sense _ , it’s just kind of a noncommittal, something you say when you’ve only half paid attention and you’re busy with something else.

Shadow doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until he lets it go, and then he tries to pass off how he slumps with relief by laying back against his bag, and pretends to look disinterestedly out at the rain.

“I know Robbie,” Says the man, and it takes Shadow a moment to register that he means the guy up at Akkala, “Really only in passing, but we have spoken on occasion.” He pauses briefly, then adds “He never struck me as the type to hire help.”

“Well, I’m not hired exactly, I just kinda help when I’m around.” Kind of a lie but not really. He’d help if he was ever around, which is to say he never will.

“What does he have you doing, may I ask?”

“Uh,” Says Shadow, eloquently. “Running messages to people, delivering parts, that sort of thing. I guess he just kinda uses me as his personal courier. He’s too busy to do it himself.” He hopes Robbie is a very busy person. He  _ really _ hopes the guy isn’t stringing him along to find out how far he’ll bluff. Killing people isn’t on his agenda.  _ Being _ killed isn’t on his agenda.

It appeases the man, finally, though, or seems to; he goes back to finishing up whatever he’s cooking and doesn’t ask anything else.

“I don’t think I caught your name,” Shadow says, to break the silence as they eat.

“Vio.”

“Is that short for something?”

Vio considers it for a moment. “No.” He finishes his meal, and carefully dumps his things into a bag and flips it shut. “Yours?”

“Shadow.” He sees that Vio has questions about this and says simply “It’s a nickname.”

Vio takes it at face value and shrugs and works on unclipping his bedroll from the saddle laying beside him. “You may as well,” He says, “Come visit Hateno, if you do not have a destination in mind already. Hylia knows I have already roped several people into staying.”

Shadow wonders whether that means he’s a serial killer or a very good real estate agent. “What d’you mean by that?”

“A few friends and I live there. A couple of them I met on the road, and they ended up staying. At the least the trades are worth looking into, if that is what you are after.”

Shadow isn’t sure how to politely explain that he’s been spouting one lie after another and that actually he would rather do literally anything else than settle down somewhere, but his social skills are rusty and he doesn’t know how to say no and not draw suspicion, so somehow he finds himself agreeing.

They leave early in the morning- very early, like, the sun isn’t even up yet early- and Shadow acts like he isn’t letting Vio lead the way but he totally is, because if there’s going to be an ambush then he’s going to need some advance notice. It does make him feel a little better, though, at least not being alone to travel. His odds are slightly better with someone to help.

To his credit, he tries very very hard not to glance in the direction of Kakariko as they follow the trail to Fort Hateno. He does anyway, but it’s only a quick look, and anyway he only sees cliffs, so it’s useless and kind of counterproductive, actually. He misses them.   


Vio catches his glance, damn the guy. “Did you ever live there?”

Shadow pretends he hasn’t heard, and draws out the look a little longer and pretends he’s seen something in the fields, because he doesn’t know whether it’s better to lie or tell a half-truth at this point. “When I was little,” He answers, finally, and hopes to the goddess that he isn’t going to regret it, “I moved when I was seven, I think. Seven or eight.”

“Strange,” Says Vio, “If I ever saw you there I do not recall it.”

Shadow gives a shrug that he hopes can pass for nonchalant. “I was a homebody.” Hoping to turn the conversation from himself, he asks “When were you there?”

“I have been visiting since I was about five. When I was ten I ended up living there for about two years, after my father was killed. After that I continued traveling.” 

Shadow isn’t entirely without tact, so he doesn’t push, even though he’d  _ really _ like to figure out who this guy  _ is _ . “So Hateno’s a nice place?”

“Nice enough. The monsters get a little out of hand on our bay, but the climate is mild and we are in a very protected place, geographically. It is hedged in by cliffs almost entirely.”

Shadow doesn’t know whether that’s a good or a bad thing, but regardless he nods like he agrees.

The trail leading to Fort Hateno runs through a flat field littered with decayed guardians, and if it puts Shadow on edge then Vio’s visibly anxious about it, and he prods his horse into a trot and hardly seems to breathe until they’ve gotten through the gate.

“You never know whether one will wake,” He says, by way of explanation, and Shadow has the good sense to drop it. He certainly can’t talk. “We can stop here,” He offers, gestures to the cabin nestled among the trees and the cooking pot set outside.

How to politely say  _ hell no _ , he wonders. “Could we get to the village today?”

“If we kept going, most likely.”

“I think I’d rather do that.”

“Fair enough.”

They get ‘ambushed’ a number of times along the way; they aren’t really ambushes, because they can hear them and Vio just rides them down as soon as they jump out, but they do make Shadow very nervous, and he thinks he’s just going to take a very long nap when they get there.

Spoilers: he doesn’t get the chance. When Vio’d said he’d gotten quite a few people to stay he’d meant it- there are four people that come to greet them (well, come to greet Vio) and they aren’t the most low-key crowd in the world, and he gets pulled into their plans for the day and doesn’t get a say in it.

At first he worries that he’s going to be found here, somewhere he can’t very easily hide. But hours pass and nothing happens, and slowly he eases into it, and finds himself sort of enjoying the company; he hasn’t really had any in a long time, for various reasons. He tries to stay in the inn, with what little money he’s got with him, but the one named Red absolutely refuses to let him, drags him along to his and his sister’s house and makes him stay while he sets up a bed for him. Shadow tries to tell him that he probably isn’t going to stick around long, but he’s hearing none of it, and neither is his sister, and neither are the other two.

Which is how, despite himself, he ends up with a home.


	9. red herrings, and other colorful idioms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the beginning of the adventure in real time! this is a long one and was VERY fun to write for me :) boy i love shadow :)

“I don’t think,” Shadow says, hauling himself up the rock, “This is the best idea you’ve ever had.”

“Oh, what do you know,” Blue replies, all too gleefully, and shields her eyes with a hand and looks out over the plains.

“I know enough to say that chasing after a hinox isn’t very smart.” He brushes the dirt off his sleeves, irritably. “Aren’t the others supposed to be here by now?”

Blue sticks her spear in the dirt and finds a seat on a curious little boulder half-buried in the silt. “They’ll get here when they get here. Shut up and enjoy the view.”

“They took the easy path. How did  _ we  _ get here first?”

“Well, maybe they ran into something.”

“Yeah, like the hinox, I bet. Maybe they’re busy fighting for their lives and we’re here enjoying the scenery.”

“Do you ever shut up?”

“Do you?”

“At least I’m not a whiny bitch.” She goes for another jab, or tries to, but the rock she’s sitting on starts moving, and she’s in defensive stance quicker than he can follow. She tries to stab it and her spear glances right off the rock- smart move, Shadow comments, and gets smacked in the head- and the thing shakes itself loose from the dirt and hauls itself up, and Blue laughs at it.

“It’s like a tiny talus,” She says, and when it waddles towards her she pokes it over on its side with the butt of her spear. “Oh, it’s cute, look at its tiny rock hands!”

Shadow is not having it, and keeps well away from the thing, and threatens to push Blue off the side of the hill if she doesn’t stop pushing it towards him. Blue laughs at him, tries to nudge it closer and it smacks the spear so hard the shaft cracks, and Shadow starts to laugh, until it waddles over and gives him a nasty knock on the leg.

“Little bitch,” He spits at it, tries to pick it up and fails miserably, half because it’s heavy but also because it’s swatting furiously at him with its little boulder fists.

Blue scoffs and drops her spear and hefts it onto her shoulder with one arm. “Trying to do this?” She asks, and throws the thing down the slope, and nearly clocks Green in the head with it.

“The hell was _ that _ ?”

“He did it,” Blue says, immediately, elbows Shadow in the side and puts on the best innocent face she can.

“The hell I did!”

Vio hits all three of them on the back of the head (to be equitable, of course). “Can the three of you leave the bickering for another day? We will get nowhere if this is how you act.”

“Shadow,” Green says, slowly, “Almost concussed me. No, scratch that, I bet that would’ve  _ killed _ me!”

“It wasn’t me!”

“It was definitely him,” Blue says, earnestly, wiping the gravel from her hands none too discreetly.

“I’m gonna shove you off this hill.”

Vio very studiously ignores both of them and presses their map into Green’s hands and goes digging for something in his bag. “How close are we to the last sighting?”

It takes a few moments of squinting before Green seems to be sure of his answer. “Probably another day’s travel at least,” He says, “And that’s assuming it hasn’t migrated at all.”

Shadow gives an exaggerated groan and throws himself into the grass. “We’ve already been looking for this thing for days now, can’t we just assume it’s gone off and go home?”

“If it comes back then we’re going to have to do this all over again. Better to get it done now.”

“And why exactly did Red get excused from this?”

“Because he’s babysitting.”

“Zelda can do that. Or she could’ve come with us, for that matter!”

“She’s helping him.”

“How many people does it take to watch a kid for a week?”

“Several, if they’re anywhere near as annoying as you.”

Shadow gets a good handful of dirt and throws it at her. “I wasn’t asking you.”

“I answered anyway.”

“Can you two please get along?”

“I didn’t throw that damn rock thing and she knows it.”

“He totally did. He was going Green bowling, said so himself.”

Shadow flips her off, and she flips him off right back, and Green has to go sit between them before they’ll stop going at each other.

Vio’s sitting idly by, looking over the map again, oblivious or just apathetic to the situation. “We still have daylight left,” He says, “We can continue on from here or make camp for the night.”

“What do you suggest,” Green says, physically restraining Blue so she doesn’t tackle Shadow (he doesn’t last very long).

“Keep going,” Blue calls, and at the same time Shadow says they ought to make camp, and she clamps a hand over his mouth. “Ignore this idiot, if we’ve got time we should use it.”

“I was thinking the same,” Vio says, pointedly ignoring Shadow’s muffled pleas for help. “If we do not find this thing in the next few days I think I will go back. There is no point in spending weeks chasing it if it has already backed off.”

“It could come back, though,” Green points out, and sighs and confiscates Blue’s spear when she acts like she’s going to run Shadow through with it. “Do we really want to have to deal with it later?”

“Do you really want to spend a month out here looking for something that may be long gone?” When Green only shrugs, he folds the map and hands it back to him. “You can continue if you so choose, but frankly I think it is a waste of time. I am giving it another few days and then I am going home.”

“You talk about it like it’s some sorta pet project,” Blue says, finally leaves Shadow alone and comes to steal food from Vio’s bag, “The thing’s been killing livestock. It nearly stomped a kid to death. You really wanna let that thing run loose?”

“I want it to stomp you to death,” Shadow says, hoarsely, and narrowly avoids getting hit again.

“I do not want to chase it to the ends of Hyrule. If it is so far away that it takes us months to reach it then I think that is just as well.”

Blue rolls her eyes, but relents, breaks into one of Vio’s meals and nearly gets knocked off the rock trying to keep it away from him. “Look,” She says, “First of all you can’t have this back because I already licked it, so fair’s fair, finders keepers. And second,” She continues, and shovels rice into her mouth like she hasn’t seen food in a week, “Who’s to say it won’t just keep causing trouble for other people?”

Green meets Vio’s eyes and shrugs. “She has a point.”

“You are welcome to continue without me.”

“Then we’d be down an archer.”

“I can kinda shoot,” Shadow offers, and backs away when Blue shoots him a glare.

“Not well enough to fight a hinox.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I’ve seen you. You can’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

“I was rusty! If I practice more I bet I’d be even better than Vio.”

The look on Vio’s face is enough to dissuade him of that. 

“Well, I’d be good enough, anyway.”

Blue stands, drops the dirty cheesecloth on Vio’s lap and gets her spear back from Green and leans on it like a cane. “Forget about Vio flaking off, as usual- don’t give me that look, dude, you do this all the time- forget about that, let’s get down this stupid hill and keep going. We have like an hour left and unlike some people-” She stares at Shadow, and he just sticks his tongue out at her- “I don’t want to waste it.”

Staying together, there is a very real possibility of someone pushing someone else down the slope, so they descend separately and regroup at the line of the forest below. It’s an empty, quiet place. Too quiet, Blue comments, suspicious.

“There aren’t any animals or anything here.”

“The forest is still regrowing,” Vio tells her, to keep her off telling tall tales about it. “Much of it was destroyed in the Calamity. It is largely empty of life.”

“Good place to get killed,” She remarks, and holds her spear a little tighter. “There’s something wrong with quiet places like this.”

“Or maybe you’re just so used to being loud that it’s new to you,” Shadow suggests, and ducks the stick she throws at him. 

Green kicks what looks like the singed remains of a bird’s nest; it skitters across the carpet of leaves and scares nothing out from hiding. “We’re gonna have a hard time finding anything to eat if the whole way is like this.”

“We still have rations. We will be fine if we are careful about using them.” 

Blue doesn’t miss the pointed look Vio gives her, and decides that she doesn’t really care. “If it comes to it we can always look somewhere else. This forest isn’t too big, yeah?”

“It’s not huge, but it’s a decent size. I don’t know if we could find something quickly enough.”

“Well, we better make quick work of this, then.”

“I do not think that is our decision to make.”

The deeper they get into the forest, the healthier the foliage seems, and the thicker the canopy gets, and even though the sun has yet to set they’re still forced to stop for the night. It’s still near silent, devoid of any life besides the trees, and the only thing they can hear around them is the rustling of the wind through the leaves.

There’s no shortage of fuel, between the dead branches and the half-dead saplings, and Vio gets to setting a fire while Blue finds a good place to pitch their shelter, and they force Shadow to divide the night’s meal instead of sitting uselessly in the tree like he wants to.

“I’m going to go have a look around,” Green tells them, drops his pack with Vio but keeps his weapons. “Just to make sure the place is secure.”

“If there were monsters I think we would hear them.”

“Even still. Can’t be too careful.”

“You can, actually,” Shadow says, picking the dirt from under his nails with his dagger (instead of doing what he was told to, which Blue is sure to point out). “It’s fine. We don’t need a scout here.”

“I’m just being careful!”

“You will have to excuse him, Green, he does not know the meaning of the word.”

“I’m plenty careful when I want to be.”

“Which is never.”

“If the occasion ever presents itself I’ll be sure to be very careful, thank you.”

Vio offers a torch to him, so he can see better, but Green waves it off, saying that it’ll only attract things- if there are things there at all- and he goes off into the trees whistling something that sounds like an old battle tune.

“We shoulda had Shadow do it,” Blue says, when Shadow resumes his uselessness. “He’s sheikah, he wouldn’t need a light. And Green would’ve actually done his part here.”

Shadow shrugs and, in a surprising twist of fate, continues to do nothing. “He volunteered. No one even needs to go out anyway.”

Vio drops the rest of the kindling into the fire and brushes the silt off his hands, and helps Blue get the shelter set against the tree. It’s a grueling task, staking a post for it; the ground is dry and packed, difficult to get anything through, and the wind is picking up and blowing the canvas in five different directions, and visibility is dwindling even with the fire going. After a drawn-out struggle with the pegs she throws her hands up in defeat and folds the canvas and drops it on the ground, and works at beating a hole in the ground with her spear.

“For the post,” She says, brusquely, when she nearly splinters the thing trying to shove it in the dirt.

He leaves her to it, and goes to try and keep the fire alive. The winds are approaching gale force, even with the trees breaking it, and the fire is sputtering, half the fuelwood burned out to a faint orange and the rest scattered around the pit. Where’s someone to help when you need them, he thinks, a little sourly, and goes looking around for something dry and heavy enough to stay put.

It occurs to him then that Shadow has not taunted Blue or in fact spoken at all in an uncharacteristically long time, and that he should probably go check on him, in part to make sure he’s okay but mostly so he can force him to help look.

He’s conspicuously absent from where he’d been before, and conspicuously absent from the rest of the clearing they’d stopped in, and Blue is too busy wrestling with the shelter to be bothered with his whereabouts. 

“Shadow,” He calls, a fruitless effort considering how loud the wind is.

He can see an outline of someone a little ways off from where he is, and figures that it’s probably Green coming back from his rounds. He can ask him whether he saw Shadow, he thinks, and goes to meet him halfway, and finds that it is not at all Green.

It’s Shadow, but he looks different; it’s a subtle difference, but it’s a  _ wrong _ difference, and he finds himself backing away before he understands why.

“Shadow, where have you been?”

He doesn’t get an answer, and wonders whether he hasn’t heard, and repeats the question, and again there’s only silence from Shadow.

Then Shadow breaks from the treeline, and the dim firelight falls on his face, and Vio finds himself wishing he hadn’t put his weapons away for the night.

“Blue,” He says, and his voice comes out too weak. “Blue.”

She doesn’t hear him, though, over the wind and over her own racket she’s busy making. And he’s clueless. It isn’t a good feeling.

He could try and run, to get his sword or a dagger or  _ something _ , but he doesn’t know whether that will provoke him; he could try to fight, empty-handed as he is, but something in Shadow’s demeanor suggests that that isn’t a very good idea. He’s carrying himself like a beast, almost, hunched and tense, postured for a strike, and though his eyes have always been red there’s something else in there, something decidedly malicious, and Vio can’t help but be a little afraid to look into it any further.

For every step forward Shadow takes, he takes one backwards to match it. He doesn’t know what else to do. He’s between a rock and a hard place, unarmed against whatever  _ this _ is, and absorbed in thought as he is he backs straight into Blue.

She’s half a second away from cursing at him for it until he meets her eyes, and the panic she sees puts her off it, and then she finally finally notices Shadow.

“The fuck is up with him,” She says, a little too loudly, a little too abruptly, and he lunges.

Vio’s lucky to have anticipated it; he shoves Shadow to the side, manages to get him off-balance for a moment, and he uses those precious seconds to take the rope from the shelter and toss the other end to Blue, and she puts the pieces together quickly enough.

They try to flank him, one on each side, each with an end of rope. It doesn’t work so well, because the second either of them get within range he snaps at them- like an animal, Vio notes, absently, dodging the claws that he’s sure Shadow’s never had before- so Blue tosses the rest of the rope to him and goes for a tackle and gets him on the ground.

“The rope!”

“I  _ know _ ,” Vio hisses, passes her end back to her and works on his securing his own.

Shadow puts up a fierce fight, thrashes beneath them, nearly escapes Blue’s hold several times, and it’s only barely that they’re able to bind his arms and legs, and as soon as they do they back off a safe distance away, baffled and scared.

It’s a moment of triumph, just a brief fleeting moment, and then Shadow bends over and rips through the bonds with his terrible inhuman teeth (?!?), shakes them off like they were made of string and stalks towards them with a look that means murder.

So he can’t be bound and he can’t be fought, Vio thinks, in a haze of panic, and he doesn’t want to  _ kill  _ him but he doesn’t know that there are any more options. But his bow isn’t strung and his sword’s buried in the pile of their belongings, too far away, and he wonders if this is really how they’re going to die, and readies himself for one last-ditch attempt.

And then Shadow goes down, hard, from the butt of a spear to the side of the head, and Blue meets Vio’s eyes, a deer in the torchlight.

“I panicked,” Blue says, drops her spear and looks back down at Shadow, motionless on the ground.

“You might have killed him,” Vio says, almost conversationally, dazed and numb with shock and adrenaline and too terrified to feel much else.

“You wanna check?”

“No.”

Blue forgets the shelter, forgets the canvas and the post and the rope and sits against the tree- slumps against it, more accurately, pulls out her latest whittling project and puts all her attention into it, and Vio tries to distract himself (and fails).

Green comes back some time later, notices the somber atmosphere and then notices Shadow lying unconscious in the middle of the clearing, and it’s an understatement to say he has some questions, very few of which either of them have the energy to answer.

He goes to approach Shadow and Blue trips him with her spear before he can go much of anywhere.

“What the  _ hell _ , Blue?”

“Don’t,” She says, wearily, “Just don’t… don’t go near him.”

“Is he dead?”

“Dunno.”

“What happened?”

“Dunno.” 

Green sits up and brushes himself off and turns to Vio for some kind of explanation, and gets only a halfhearted shrug. “Okay, someone’s gotta tell me why he’s passed out in the dirt.”

“He was feral,” Vio tells him. “Feral or… something. I do not know what else to call it. He was attacking us.”

“So I knocked him out.”

“You could’ve killed him.”

“You do not know that.”

“It was us or him anyway,” Blue snaps, too tired to be given a lecture, “We tried to tie him up and he tore the rope like it was straw. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“And you just  _ left _ him there?”

“You were not there,” Vio says, fatigued but earnest, “You do not understand. I am not going near him. Neither is Blue. Risk your life if you wish, but there is nothing you can tell me that will convince me to go check on him.”

Green has half a mind to go over anyway to prove that they’re overreacting, but he doesn’t think he’s ever heard that kind of tone in Vio’s voice, and it gives him pause. “...That bad?”

“Worse.”

“Can you please tell me what happened?”

Vio sighs, stares at the silhouette lying facedown a few dozen feet away. “Later,” He says, and suddenly looks very tired. “In the morning. I do not think I want to discuss it now.”

Green offers to take the watch, but Blue refuses, still wide awake from the adrenaline and too on edge to sleep. Vio’s out before either of them even get their bedrolls, asleep against the tree with his bow in his lap and his sword resting against his arm, which says something about the kind of state he’s in. Green takes his pack for a pillow, and Blue sits vigil between them, spear and knife in hand, waiting.

 

Shadow wakes very sore and disoriented.

The first thing he notices is that he has a faceful of dirt and grass and ash, and he experiences a brief, perplexing moment of  déjà vu. He pushes himself up, or tries to; he gets dizzy when he stands too fast and has to sit back down for a moment, and he blinks the sun out of his eyes and presses his palms to his forehead and tries to figure out why his head hurts so much.

He can’t come up with a satisfactory answer, mostly because the pain is scattering his thoughts. It isn’t just his head, it’s a deep, full-body ache, something that he is, unfortunately, very familiar with, and a thought bubbles to the top of his groggy mind.

What a wonderful situation to be in.

When he can stand to keep his eyes open, he looks over and sees Vio busying himself with something a little ways away, and figures he can ask exactly what went down last night. He takes it as a good sign that doesn’t see blood anywhere, except on the back of his own head, and he can infer the cause of that easily enough.

He stands, slowly, carefully, starts to take deliberate (if a little wobbly) steps towards Vio, and the second he accidentally steps on a stick and snaps it, Vio is on his feet with his bow drawn on him faster than Shadow’s ever seen him move.

“Woah,” Shadow says, and his voice cracks, and he puts his hands up in surrender and really really hopes that Vio doesn’t let go of that string. “What- what’s that for?”

Vio doesn’t take the arrow off him, but he seems to relax at least a little bit. “There was,” He says slowly, “An incident last night. And I suggest that you be very careful in what you say to me.”

Shadow blinks, slowly, and stares for a moment before he registers what Vio means by that, and then he silently curses himself out and sits down, half to seem less imposing and half because it’s getting hard to stay upright (Vio nearly shoots him for moving without announcing himself). He keeps his hands in plain sight, tries to appear as non-threatening and contrite as he can- even so, he suspects it won’t fool Vio.

“Look,” He says, and his mouth is suddenly very dry. “Look. I- I can explain what happened-”

“I expect that you can, yes.”

“But you gotta take the bow off me first.”

“Why,” Says Vio, icily, “Would I do that?”

Shadow tries to push down his mounting panic and acts as calmly assured about the situation as he can. “Because you won’t let me talk. You’ll just kill me without letting me finish.”

“Then I assume you have something particularly bad to tell me.”

“I’m not gonna deny that,” Shadow agrees, hesitantly, “I just… you have to let me explain.”

Vio looks him over, impassively, and then sighs, and lets go of the string.

The arrow impales the ground two feet from where he’s sitting, and needless to say it scares the hell out of him, and he looks up to see Vio already walking away.

“I am getting Blue,” He says, curtly. “Do not go anywhere.”

He isn’t sure he could even if he wanted to. Which he kind of does, just a little, because he doesn’t look forward to this conversation at all. But he’s tired and in a lot of pain and he’s sure the three of them could track him down faster than he could get away, in his current state, and he doesn’t know where else to go.

He’s dependent now, he thinks, sourly, and waits for them to get back.

Blue’s clearly in some kind of mood, if her expression is anything to judge by. “Talk,” She says, brusquely. “And don’t try to lie your way out of this.”

“I wasn’t going to,” He snaps, before he can help himself, and then remembers exactly what kind of position he’s in and takes a deep breath and thinks about how best to say this.

“Last night,” He says, slowly, “Was a blood moon. I think. I don’t really remember what happened, but I can guess.”

“We know this already.”

“No, but I… The blood moon. It has to do with what happened.” He chances eye contact with Vio; it doesn’t go well, and he’s scared off trying it with Blue. “So, uh.” How to go about this without getting killed on the spot?

“If you’d rather us just kill you you can say so,” Blue says, scowling. 

“I am-” Shadow starts, and nearly chokes on his words- “An ex-Yiga-” And that gets the exact response he’d expected, which is to say that the both of them reach for their weapons, and Blue shouts for Green, and all he can do is sputter. “No, no, I said  _ ex _ I’m not with them anymore-”

“And you expect us to believe that?”

“I wouldn’t be staying with you if I was,” Shadow says, eyes unabashedly fixed on Blue’s spear. “I left,” He continues, slowly, in a pitiful attempt to hide how terrified he is right now, “Years ago. A couple months before I met you guys. I hated it.” He takes a shaky breath, wonders whether he should keep talking or whether he’s just digging his own grave at this point. “And- and Vio, remember a while back- like, I’m talking years at least- remember I said you seemed familiar? I think… I think I figured out why. You were the-” He pauses, because he knows that calling him a half-blood probably won’t go over very well. “You were in and out of Kakariko a lot when I was a kid,” He says, instead, “And I talked to you once. When you came by. It was about the horses.”

Vio gives him an odd look, one that Shadow can’t place; it could be sympathy, or it could be that he’s trying to recall him, or maybe he’s just fed up with the whole thing. But something clicks, evidently, because he lays a gentle hand on Blue’s arm, nudges the spear down from its ready position. “You were the missing child,” He says, with an expression that seems half bitter and half wistful, for reasons Shadow couldn’t begin to guess.

“I was,” He agrees, maybe a little too quickly, glad that he’s catching on. The odds of him getting killed today are getting significantly lower every minute, he thinks, and even allows himself a little feeling of triumph. “But I mean, I wasn’t missing. I left, and then when I was traveling I ran into a Yiga guy. Or, well, I didn’t run into him, he was gonna kill me but I said I’d join them instead ‘cause I was like nine and terrified of him. And I was there for a while and then I found out they were the ones that killed my parents and everyone else who went missing and I left. And I ran into you a couple months after that.”

Blue’s clearly lost in this whole timeline- Shadow can’t blame her, because he finds himself tangled up in it more often than he cares to admit- but Vio’s following at least to some degree, and if nothing else, now Shadow thinks he can see a little tiny bit of sympathy in his eyes now.

“That does not explain,” He says, and finally, finally lays his bow aside (just as Green enters the clearing, looking baffled), “What the blood moon has to do with it.”

Shadow winces. “It’s a Yiga thing.”

“You said you left,” Blue points out, and when Green gets over she tells him to sit, and he does, still absolutely lost and not sure that he likes what’s going on.

“Hold on,” Green says, and is violently shushed by Blue, and he shushes her right back. “Okay, catch me up, what’s this about?”

“Shadow is an ex-Yiga and he is about to explain to us what happened last night. Be quiet and listen.”

“Oh,” Says Green, eloquently, still processing. “Well, okay. I guess if he’s ex.”

“See?  _ He _ ’s fine about it.”

“He did not see what we did.”

“...It’s part of the initiation thing.”

“Going rabid on the blood moon?”

“No,” He snaps, and then pauses to rethink it. “Okay, well, kinda. It’s… It happens ‘cause of something during initiation is what I mean.”

“Does it have something to do with this?” Vio asks, and pulls from his bag the flask that Shadow always keeps on hand, and Shadow can’t describe how happy he is to see that he didn’t lose it off somewhere in the forest like he’d thought he did. He reaches for it back, hoping there will still be some left- there won’t be, of course, but he still hopes- but Vio doesn’t hand it over. “What was in it?”

So now not only does he have to spill his deepest, darkest secret, he’s also got to give up one of his most embarrassing. “Okay, before I tell you what it is you have to promise not to make fun of me for it.”

“I think we’re past the point of worrying about stupid shit like drinks.”

“Well, no, not really, considering it’s Malice,” He says, before he can overcomplicate things trying to deliver it lightly.

“Malice,” Green repeats, and looks, to put it in a word, disgusted. “Wait, I’m sorry. You  _ drink _ that.”

“Yeah-”

“Like, you put it in your mouth and swallow it.”

“Yeah.”

“Voluntarily. You just knock it back like a smoothie.”

“Okay, kind of but not really, it’s fucking disgusting and I hate doing it.”

“Then  _ why _ ?”

“Because it’s where I get my magic from,” He says, and gets a nasty knock on the head from Blue that sets his head swimming. 

“You have  _ magic _ ,” She demands, “And you’ve never said a word about it?”

“It’s a dead giveaway, so yeah, I don’t go shouting it from the rooftops.” He prods at where Blue hit him and is not surprised in the least to feel a bruise forming already, and he winces and tries to leave it alone. “Would you stop trying to concuss me?”

“I should do worse than that for all of this shit,” She snaps. “What’s it got to do with the moon anyway? You’re ducking the question.”

“It’s- the Malice, it comes from Ganon’s power, right? Are you following?”

“You said one sentence, idiot.”

“Okay, well, that’s kind of the important part, so I wanted to make sure,  _ idiot _ .” Only Green’s reflexes save him from another bruise, and he scoots back a little more, trying to get out of range. “I’m not like an expert or anything on how it works. But the Malice- that’s initiation, right, drinking it, ‘cause it links you to Ganon or whatever.” Hesitantly, he pushes his sleeve up, unwraps the bandages he keeps around his left forearm. It’s something that he’s still very scared of showing them, but, he figures, if he’s in for a penny then he’s in for a pound, and he shows them the brand. It’s still the same vibrant red-pink it was the day he got it, and the skin around it is struck through with more scars than he can count. He isn’t particularly proud to admit that he got most of them trying to carve the thing out of his own arm.

“I think this has something to do with it too,” He says, wilting a little under the scrutiny. “And anyway. It’s linked to Ganon, and the blood moon is too, so… that happens. Sometimes.”  
“Sometimes?”

“Sometimes he just kinda… Drains everyone. To get his power back. And sometimes he takes control of people and does what happened last night. But most of the time he doesn’t do that.” He pulls his arm back when Vio reaches for it, too anxious to deal with that quite now. “Don’t touch that,” He says, and his voice falters, and suddenly he feels very tired, and he thinks that the adrenaline from waking up to an arrow pointed at his throat is finally wearing off.

They let him lay down, and finally, mercifully, give up the interrogation. He’s too worked up to sleep, but he closes his eyes and tries to rest, and he can catch little pieces of their conversation from where they sit preparing breakfast.

“Do we just let this go?” Blue sounds angry and confused and, Shadow thinks, maybe a little sad. “I mean, he almost killed two of us last night.”

“If he’s telling the truth-”

“I believe he is,” Vio tells him, which surprises Shadow. Of everyone he’d have to convince, Vio seemed the least likely prospect. Shadow silently praises himself for including that little piece of history between them. 

“So say he is,” Green continues, “What do we do about it? I mean… We can’t just let him keep dealing with this. With the blood moon turnings or whatever.”

“I do not know that there is a way to reverse it.”

“Maybe he knows.”

“I think if there was he would have used it already.”

“So we’re just gonna leave it at that, then?” Green sounds frustrated. “Like, really? Just look at it and see no obvious options and give it up right there?”

“We never said that,” Blue says, and Shadow can hear the scowl in her voice. “What we’re saying is that it’s probably gonna take a little more than some instant fairy princess magic.”

“It is something that we would certainly need to look into further. And I doubt that he is in any state to be running the length of Hyrule searching right now. He was struggling to sit upright.”

“And that’s assuming there even  _ is _ a way to fix it.”

“So then we forget about this whole hinox thing and go home for now,” Green suggests (which Vio agrees is the smartest thing anyone’s said all week). “Let him recover, and explain the situation to Zelda and Red-” Uh oh, Shadow thinks, he’d totally forgotten about  _ them _ \- “And we can decide where to go from there.”

They agree on it, which is probably the first consensus they’ve come to in weeks, and they go about their own businesses, and Shadow is caught off guard by his own ability to pass out directly afterwards.

He only knows he’s fallen asleep when Vio wakes him with a mess tin in each hand.

“Food,” He says, a little tersely.

Shadow tries to stretch and it hurts, tries to sit and it hurts even more, so he lays back down and tucks back into the bedroll. “Can’t.”

“It will help.”

“I can’t even sit,” He says, bitterly.

“Then lean against the tree.”

“Yeah, and I expect I’ll just pull myself up? With what strength? I am-” He sighs, hating every word of it- “Too weak right now.”

Vio gives him an odd look, and then without warning gets an arm around him and hauls him up, and Shadow recoils and crosses his arms over his chest.

“That  _ hurt _ ,” He huffs, tries to will the aching away or at least ignore it, and can’t.

“Is there no way to alleviate it?”

“‘M not gonna stop being tired ‘til I can get more Malice.”

If the thought disgusts Vio he hides it well. “And when would that be?”

“A week at least. It all evaporates after the blood moons.”

Vio pushes his flask back to him, and he opens it and turns it upside down and shakes it, just to see. There’s nothing in it, not even a little tiny drop, and he’s both relieved and disappointed at once. 

“Empty,” He huffs, lets the thing fall to the ground, and takes the tin he’s being offered. 

“May I ask why it is that the Malice does not harm you?”

“No damn idea,” Shadow answers, truthfully, and shovels a piece of omelet into his mouth. 

“Certainly any of the rest of us would die if we drank it.”

“I bet you would. Even some of the Yiga die during initiation. I was the only one in the new group to survive it.”

Vio’s finished before Shadow’s even halfway through, and he sets his tin aside and takes the flask and tries to see into it.

“Why have you hidden this from us for so long?”

Shadow gives him a look. “I dunno, why do  _ you _ think?”

Vio gives him a look right back. “Maybe you did not realize that us finding out this way would be far worse for you than if you had just said something about it.”

“Maybe  _ you _ just don’t understand exactly how it is,” He mutters, pushes his own half-eaten food aside because his stomach is churning and he doesn’t think he can eat any more without throwing up. “You don’t just casually tell someone you’re part of the most hated group in Hyrule.”

“It does not matter that it is a difficult thing to say. You are going beyond foolishness now. You are putting other people in harm’s way because you cannot muster the courage to come clean about your past. We could have helped you much sooner if you had not actively avoided telling us.”

“There is no  _ helping _ it,” He spits, “It’s  _ permanent _ . I can’t just go back and say ‘just kidding’ and rip up a contract, it’s for  _ life _ !”

“You do not know that.”

“Really? I don’t? And you just know my life better than I do, yeah?”

“It is only common sense to figure that they would not tell you of a way out. Certainly there is one. They just did not want anyone considering it.”

“Or maybe there is no  _ way out  _ and you’re just a pretentious asshole pretending to know more than everyone else.”

Vio’s glare is cold. “Maybe I am a pretentious asshole, but I am a pretentious asshole trying to  _ help _ you. Forgive me for that.” 

He goes to get up, but Shadow experiences a brief second of remorse followed by a very sharp wave of desire to not be left alone right now, and he catches Vio’s wrist.

The words get half-stuck in his throat, but he says them anyway. “I’m sorry. Please don’t go.”

Vio gives him an appraising look for a long moment, and then gets up anyway. But he only goes to leave his tin by the fire to be cleaned (Blue claims to be annoyed by it, but the way he cleans it annoys her even more) and then he sits back down with Shadow.

“You could stop drinking Malice, for one,” He says. 

“No.”

“See, you are not even accepting help.”

“No, Vio, you really just don’t get it, do you? I  _ can’t _ .”

“What, will it kill you?”

“In a way, yeah, it will. I stop drinking it, I lose my magic, I can’t defend myself when they find me.”

“When?”

“When. I know they will. It’s just a matter of time.” He shrinks back into the bedroll a little more. “I’m surprised they haven’t yet.”

“You are going to have to put some sort of effort into this,” Vio says, sounding irritated, “You will not stop drinking Malice. You will not consider the possibility of a way out. You offer no solutions of your own.”

“Look,” Shadow says, bitterly, “Stopping with the Malice? It isn’t an option. It isn’t. I  _ need _ it or they’re going to find me and they’re going to kill me. How hard is that to understand?”

“You can learn to fight with a sword or a spear like the rest of us, which we have been suggesting for several years.”

“I  _ know _ how to fight,” He spits, before he can help his temper, “Don’t you fuckin’ get condescending with me. The most skilled warrior in the universe couldn’t hope to outlast a Yiga with magic. The Hylian  _ Champion _ couldn’t do it, and that’s why we’re in this mess, so how the  _ fuck _ do you expect  _ me _ to?”

Vio scowls, mulls it over for a moment and then sighs. “You are going to make this far more difficult than it needs to be.” He pauses, to think, drums his fingers on his leg, and waves Green over when he glances in their direction. “This is something we are going to have to give a lot of thought to.”

Green gives them both an odd look as he sits. “Something going on?”

“He will not stop drinking it,” Vio tells him, and Shadow gets the feeling that this whole conversation was something that the two of them had premeditated. “He says that the magic is our best shot at surviving whatever it is we decide to do.”

“You’re… sure?”

“Would you just trust me on this? We  _ need _ it.  _ I _ need it, or I won’t live long enough to figure out what the solution is. You don’t know the first damn thing about the clan but I’ve been  _ in _ it and I can tell you that you won’t last five minutes against a decent caster.”

“So what about you? How good are you with it?”

“Better than most. But the highest people could bowl me over like a fucking tree in a hurricane.”

Green sighs at him, and Shadow would really like to hit both of them for acting so put-out (but, inwardly, he doesn’t really blame them). “Y’know,” He says, sounding less irritated than Shadow had expected, “We really could’ve used that in a lot of situations.”

“Well, nothing screams  _ kill me _ quite like using Ganon’s magic. So  _ sor _ ry for trying to not get murdered.”

“Whatever,” Green says, before Vio can get annoyed, “We know now. We can use it now, right? And it’ll make a lot of things a lot easier. So we go back home and we get things figured out.”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“First we will have to figure out how to get things figured out.”

“Red and Zelda might have some good ideas.”

“I’m still gonna have to tell them.”

Green must hear the anxiety in his voice, because he lays a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to reassure him. “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” He says, “I mean, you’ve already got Blue and Vio out of the way, and they’re the mean ones. We won’t have any problems with them.”

Shadow begs to differ- or would, if he at all felt like dragging out the conversation even more. As it is he leaves it there, and feels very much like an invalid as he’s left to his own devices in his bedroll. He’s informed that they’ll be leaving in the morning, which he fiercely protests, considering he isn’t even in a position to stand, much less travel. Too bad, Blue tells him, throws him a bag and says that he’d better hope he’s feeling better then.

Shocker- he doesn’t. Or not enough, at least. He isn’t so much in danger of passing out anymore, but it’s still a chore to stand, and with every step he takes he feels like his knees are going to buckle. He tries to use Blue’s spear as a crutch, to support some of his weight, but it doesn’t work very well, especially since it’s broken and only half his height now, and he ends up leaning on Vio.

“If I had known what you were planning,” Vio tells him, sometime after lunch on the second day of their return journey, “I would have had Impa tie you to a chair.”

“But you still would have told me how to leave.”  
“I would have told you exactly where to stick your questions and then I would have had Impa tie you to a chair. As it is I think that still may be the best course of action.”

Their trip back takes an extra three days, largely because he’s too tired to keep up much of a pace, and there’s also the little insignificant detail of they find the hinox. It’s a blue one, not the worst thing possible, but it’s certainly a challenge, and especially so when they have a dead weight member to deal with.

“Can you  _ do something _ ?” Blue yells at him, when she nearly gets trampled after spearing it through the calf.

Vio’s trying to get shots off into its eye, but it gets smart after an arrow or two and starts covering itself with a hand, and it takes a lot of distraction to get it to stop, which involves a significant amount of risk for the other two trying to get at it close-range.

“Wish I could,” He calls back, from his safe spot atop the hill, and watches the chaos. He’s feeling a little bit better, but certainly not back to peak performance, and he thinks that if he’s got to do anything more than a brisk walk he’s going to throw up.

And that’s all fine, all fun and games, until the hinox lays eye on him, and starts up the hill.

The others can’t draw its ire from him, no matter how many arrows they stick in its back or swords they put through its legs, and Shadow finds himself trying to at least pull himself to a part of the hill inaccessible to it, and of course can’t. And the hinox gains on him quickly, especially for being a big fat lumbering beast, and starts pulling itself up the hill with surprising ease, digging its filthy jagged nails into the dirt and hauling itself up bit by bit.

“Fuck,” Says Shadow, pleasantly, and wonders if this is how he’s going to die.

He knows that the others won’t be able to get up quickly enough to stop it. He knows that he doesn’t have the strength to wield a sword right now. He knows that he is in no shape to be performing great feats of magic. He is, however, desperate, and desperation makes for a very powerful force.

Later, he can’t even begin to guess where he gets it from, but in a burst of adrenaline and fear and  _ something _ , he musters up what energy he can, finds a good heavy rock nearby, and uses the last little dregs of his magic to send it hurling through the hinox’s eye.

It’s not perfect and it certainly isn’t pretty, but it does the trick, and it goes smashing through the eye, blinding it, and a second later takes a trip through its brain as well. It no longer has an eye for the light to drain out of, but it’s easy enough to see how it crumples like a house of cards, and the others hardly manage to get out of the way before its grip on the hill loosens and it falls to the ground below like a felled tree.

Assured of his own relative safety, he promptly passes out again.

 

* * *

 

It’s the middle of the night when he wakes again, and he’s really starting to get sick of this whole being unconscious business. Vio’s on watch, bow strung and an arrow ready, looking out over the field below, and when he notices that Shadow is awake he pushes over the flask.

It feels full, and Shadow’s about to ask what’s in it, but Vio just waves him off like he already knows the question.

“As the hinox died,” He says, “It… dissolved. Into what I can only assume was Malice. I was able to get some for you before it all dissipated.” He makes a face. “It was not particularly fun.”

Shadow, very much in disbelief, unscrews the cap (or rather, gets Vio to do it for him). Vio isn’t lying- it’s real, actual  Malice, or it’s just a very good imitation, and it’s enough to last him a while if he’s careful with how he uses it.

“Thanks,” He says, stares into the flask and wonders whether he really wants to do this. 

When he just sits there scowling and doesn’t do anything, Vio nudges him. “Is there a problem with it?”

“No, it’s fine,” Shadow says, tries to make himself at least drink a little and can’t. “I mean, it’s the right stuff. It’s just disgusting is all. I hate drinking this shit.”

“Then do not.”

“Didn’t we just go over this a couple days ago?”

“Then drink it. Make your decision. I would like to get back to Hateno quickly.”

Shadow fake-pouts. “Where’s the sympathy? Where’s the  _ gratitude _ ? I took that thing down single-handedly!”

“With a rock.”

“With a rock and magic. Which was pretty impressive, in my opinion. Even if doing it knocked me out again.”

Shadow, perhaps against his better judgement, smells the Malice as he tries to drink it again, and nearly starts retching right there, and physically can’t bring himself to put the flask to his lips.

“Vio?”

“Yes?”

“You got anything to eat?”

“I still have a ration pack.”

“Lemme see it.”

He forks it over with surprisingly little grumbling, and Shadow tries to trick his idiot brain by disguising the smell with the food, and it kind of sort of works, and he manages to at least get down a mouthful before he has to stop.

“Are you like this every time?”

Shadow holds up a finger, hunched over and trying not to let go of his lunch. “Okay,” He says, when the feeling has passed, “Look. Look. If you had to drink this shit-” He pauses for a moment, when another wave of nausea hits- “You’d do it too. I’ve gotta suffer enough with this. Least you can do is not bully me about it.”

“You did not answer my question.”

“For the love of- yes. Most of the time, yes Vio I am like this, because it tastes like someone made a soup out of vomit and shit and rotting meat. You wanna try it?” He shoves the flask towards Vio, who makes no move to accept it. “That’s what I thought.”

“The payoff must be very good if you continue to drink it.”

“Well, yeah, it is. Mostly it’s worth it. Until the blood moon rolls around, and then I get to feel like hot garbage for a week.”

Vio sighs, adjusts his bow in his lap and looks away. “Are you feeling any better?”

“I could use some sleep.” He looks pointedly at Green, who’s rolled half into his bedroll and is impossible to get to move. “But I’ll probably be okay in the morning.”

And for the most part he is; still tired, and still with fleeting waves of nausea, but he’s certainly much better off than the past few days, and although he doesn’t dare push it, it does make the rest of the journey easier.

“I wanna see this magic of yours,” Blue says, as they walk through Hateno’s gates, and Shadow very aggressively shushes her.

“Don’t say it so loud,” He hisses (as if anyone is out this late).

“I want,” She says, loudly and carefully enunciating, “To see this magi-”

Shadow starts talking even louder over her until she gets frustrated and tries to shut him up, which doesn’t really work because her spear is broken and not long enough to reach him. 

“You did.”

“No I didn’t. You claim to have thrown a rock with it.  _ I _ didn’t see it and I don’t give half a damn about tossing rocks around. Like, what can you  _ do _ with it?”

“I can do a lot with it, but I’m not gonna do anything with it  _ here _ and especially not when you’re annoying the hell out of me.”

When they get to Red’s and Zelda’s house it’s dark, all the lanterns shuttered and the curtains drawn and the door locked, and they’re wondering whether to bother them when Blue starts banging on the door.

“Shut  _ up _ ,” Green says, shoulders her away from the door, “You’re gonna wake the entire town doing that!”

“Well, it’s important.”

Shadow stands there and watches them argue for a minute, and then says, simply, “I can pick the lock.” He goes to the door, presses his palm against the knob and it’s only a few seconds before it clicks and swings open of its own accord. “There’s your magic,” He says to Blue, over his shoulder, and walks in.

“I’m not sure this is like… okay,” Green says, hesitantly following them inside, and quietly shuts the door behind them. “I mean, technically, this is breaking and entering.”

“I didn’t  _ break _ anything.”

Green’s about to argue it, but then they hear footsteps upstairs, and Green shushes them in a loud whisper.

“Hello?”

“It’s just us,” Green calls, fumbling for somewhere to sit in the darkness, “We’re back, don’t kill anyone.”

They hear something else, and then a little tinny sound like someone knocking on a piece of metal, and a candle flares to life down the hallway.

“We were expecting you back sooner,” Zelda says, shuffles towards them and lights the lantern sitting on the side table, and suddenly they can see a lot better.

“We ran into a few obstacles on the way,” Vio says, simply, and grabs Shadow by the collar of his shirt before he can think to run off anywhere. “Is Red awake?”

“No. Somehow Blue’s shouting didn’t get him up.”

“Then I’ll go do it again,” She says, goes stomping down the hall as loud as physically possible and starts banging on his door. “Red! Up and at ‘em!”

“Don’t break their door,” Green admonishes, sounding very put-out, and gets completely ignored.

Zelda’s laughing, though, as Blue decides that waiting five seconds is four seconds too long and barges into the room and nearly clocks Red in the face with the door.

“I’m  _ up _ ,” He says, in a voice that’s half a pout, “Hylia, Blue, you don’t have to beat me up with my own door.”

“Just making sure you’re awake,” She says, all too cheerfully. “C’mon. Family meeting.”

He’s rubbing at his eyes as he finds a spot beside Green on the couch. “Okay, who died?”

“Me and Vio, almost,” Blue says, at the same time that Green says “No one.”

Zelda shoves Green off the armrest to get space, and Green doesn’t have much of a choice but to find somewhere else, and decides that on top of the dinner table is a suitable spot.

“So,” She says, when everyone’s settled, “What’s going on?”

“Well,” Says Vio, “We were on our little journey looking for that hinox, and had made camp for the night, and we came across a very interesting and quite frankly terrifying phenomenon-”

Shadow scowls at him. “Vio, quit it with the drama.”

Vio pointedly ignores him. “We were, of course, unaware that it was a blood moon. So Green has gone on a patrol, to make sure there is nothing around the area where we are staying, and Blue and I are busy setting up, and Shadow is nowhere to be found. Some time after Green has left I hear footsteps, and I think, well, perhaps this is him returning, and I can ask if he has seen where Shadow has gone. And to my surprise it is not Green-”

“Okay, shut up, you’re gonna make it sound a lot worse than it was-”

“Is that possible?”

“Shut up! Shut up. My tale to tell here. You’ll just make it dramatic. Moral of the story is,” He says, and pauses, “Some shit went down on the blood moon, right? Some things happened and all I’ve got to say is that I’m an ex-Yiga and if you want details then too bad.”

“You’re a what,” Red says, and then blinks, startled. “Wait, you- really?”

“I left years ago. Further questions are discouraged.”

“No,” Says Zelda, “Hey, no, you don’t get to just say that and not explain.”

Blue gives Shadow a companionable elbow to the ribs. “That’s what we were saying.”

“Long story short is that I left home when I was really little and I went to the Yiga ‘cause they’d kill me if I didn’t and then I got sick of it and I left.”

“So what about the blood moon?”

“Bad things happen on blood moons and that’s all you need to know.”

“Shadow.”

“Zelda.”

“He basically went rabid,” Blue tells her, ducks the ‘friendly’ ‘nudge’ Shadow throws at her and puts him in a ‘friendly’ ‘headlock’.

“He says it is something that happens to all Yiga. Supposedly what happened that night does not happen most of the time, and he just gets very tired, but yes, he very nearly killed us.”

“You say that pretty casually, considering,” Red says, glances at Shadow. “I guess now that you mention it, I have kinda noticed it, though. You getting all tired, I mean. I think I would’ve said something if you’d tried to kill me.”

“He tries to kill us regularly. With his cooking.”

“It isn’t  _ that _ bad.”

“You’ve burned water before.”

Shadow glares at Zelda, and she just smiles at him, a perfect picture of innocence. “Okay, look, my cooking skills-”

“Or lack thereof.”

“Are completely irrelevant. We didn’t come here at ass o’clock at night to make fun of my cooking.”

“Can you even call it cooking?”

“Red?”

“Yeah?”

“Do me a favor and shut up.”

“So then,” Zelda says, to keep either of them from trying to instigate, “What do we do about it?”

“We have not figured that out yet. It is perhaps too late for it tonight, but it is something we have to discuss.”

“Well, do you have any ideas?”

“I really could not say. There are a few unlikely things we were talking about on the way here, but I do not know whether they will work. This is likely going to be a very long process. And Shadow refuses to help.”

“That’s not true,” He says, and frowns. “I’ll help when we know what we’re doing. Which we don’t.”

“Complaining about not knowing what to do isn’t gonna help you suddenly figure it out.”

“Everyone is on my  _ case _ lately.”

“And for good reason.”

“I don’t need five people constantly nagging at me over every little thing-”

“Well, it’s getting very late and I for one want to get some sleep,” Red announces, loudly, and stands, “So you guys can keep yelling at each other or whatever and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Blue says, with the devious half-grin that always means she’s about to do  _ something _ , “Shadow’s just cranky ‘cause he hasn’t had his nap today.”

“Blue, I will personally throw you out the window.”

“Really?  _ You _ ? Mister I-couldn’t-walk-by-myself-for-two-days?”

“That wasn’t even my fault, first of all-”

“Doesn’t make it any less true-”

“Well,” Says Green, with a falsely cheerful tone, “Nice spending time with everyone, I’ll see you later! Vio, it’s cool if I borrow your couch?” He doesn’t bother to wait for Vio’s response, slides off the table and brushes (pushes) past Blue on his way out.

“Have fun?” Zelda asks, stands beside Vio, out of the way of the other two, who are engaged in what seems like a very bizarre kind of arm wrestling. (Shadow is losing.)

“Of course,” Vio says, dryly, as Shadow starts complaining that stomping on someone’s foot is cheating, to which Blue retorts that he never  _ specified _ that. “Never a dull moment.”

“I’m envious,” She says, in a droll sort of tone. “I’ll take Blue?”

“Fine by me.” 

He goes over and takes Shadow by the arm and pulls him towards the door- Shadow struggles to escape, but Vio knows pressure points and it’s hard to break his grip when his whole arm feels dead. “We will be back in the morning,” He says, and closes the door behind them before Shadow can think to yell some last-ditch insult.

Vio lets go of Shadow’s arm only once they’re halfway to his house, and Shadow scowls at him and rubs at his arm to try and get some feeling back into it. 

“You’re treating me like a kid.”

“You are acting like a kid.”

Shadow sighs and rolls his eyes, and doesn’t bother pushing it. When they get home he takes his fold-out bed to the loft and takes half the blankets off Vio’s bed for himself and lays down and waits until Vio comes up.

“Can I ask you something?”

Vio hardly spares him a glance over his shoulder. “What?”

Shadow sits up, so he can actually see him, although Vio doesn’t return the courtesy. “What happened after I left?”

“Kakariko?”

“No, dumbass, the general store.  _ Yes _ , Kakariko.”

Vio snorts. “What you would expect. Most of the adults were out searching. A few went out to the nearest stables asking after you. The owner of one mentioned seeing someone he thought was you, but nothing else. I do not know much beyond that. I ended up leaving after a week or so.”

“I thought you were staying there for the season. That’s what you told me.”

“That was the plan.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“They did not allow me to. They said they could not have outsiders in after such an egregious event.”

“...Outsiders? But you’re-”

“Not a full-blooded sheikah. And therefore, technically, an outsider.”

Shadow seems affronted. “So they kicked you out?”

“That is not what they called it. But effectively, yes. I think a few of them blamed me, even. Regardless, I do not want to discuss it.”

“Did they ever let you back in?”

Vio gives him a look over his shoulder. “What did I just say?”

“Just the one question and then I’ll stop. Promise.”

“...After things blew over a bit,” He says, and sighs. “It was several months before I was allowed in again. Ultimately it was my father who convinced them I ought to be readmitted.”

They’re both quiet for a long moment.

“I’m sorry,” Shadow says, finally, picking at a loose thread on the edge of the blanket.

“You could not have predicted that would happen.”

“Y’know, for a while after we met- well, re-met, I guess- I thought for sure you were gonna recognize me. And then go rat me out to someone.”

“The last time I had seen you was seven years prior, and only in passing. You had changed quite a lot. And by then I had assumed you were dead.”

“Well,” Shadow says, with a weak smile, though he knows Vio can’t see him, “Surprise.”

They reconvene in the morning, back at Zelda’s, and Green promptly goes to stubbornly go back to sleep on their couch (“eight in the morning is too early to be up!”).

“So,” Says Red, after a fair bit of pushing Green around to make space, “What are we thinking?”

“We’re not really sure. We were talking about it a little on the way here, but every time we bring something up Shadow just shoots it down and says it won’t work.”

“Because it isn’t that easy.”

“How do  _ you _ know? Have you tried?”

“Yeah, actually, so before you come after me maybe you should check your own attitude.”

“We’re trying to  _ help _ you-”

“Which means,” Zelda interrupts her, and gives her a look, “That instead of sitting here arguing we should actually think about this. What do we  _ know _ about it?”

“Not much,” Blue sneers, and shoots a pointed look at Shadow.

“Shadow says that drinking Malice is what forges the connection. He does not know how it works beyond that, which makes it difficult to figure out how to break it.”

“Is it like what happened to the guardians? Ganon corrupted those, didn’t he?”

“It may be,” Vio concedes, “But as far as I am aware, no one knows how to break that connection either, or we would have been hearing about it already. Regardless, I doubt there is any sort of precedent for this.” 

“Well, what if there was?”

“Then it is certainly not common knowledge.”

“So say there is some sort of information on it. Where do we get it?”

“I would imagine something like that would have been kept in the castle library. It is not an item you want to risk getting stolen.”

“So we can go there,” Green says, still half-asleep, and they look at him as though he’s grown a second head. “What? I’ve been in and out of the Castle Town grounds a couple times scavenging. It’s not so bad if you know where to hide.”

“Have you ever been in the  _ castle _ ?”

“What? No, what do I look like, stupid?”

“Yeah, actually.”

“My dad’s been in it, though.”

“After the Calamity?”

“No, but unless Ganon did some serious interior redesigning, I don’t think the layout will have changed much.”

“Okay, Hyrule Castle expert,” Blue says, condescendingly, “What can we expect? What do  _ you _ know about it?”

“Well, it’s pretty heavily guarded, for one. Even in the town’s grounds there had to be at least a dozen guardians. You can’t even get near the walls without seeing a couple. And then I’ll bet there’s even more in the castle itself. Skywatchers, stalkers, the weird ones with the necks, tons of ‘em.”

“And you are suggesting we go in there,” Vio says, dryly.

“I’m just saying it’s a possibility.”

“Well, it’s a shitty one.”

“Shadow, until you offer a solution of your own you don’t get to criticize anyone else’s.”

“It’s suicide. You literally only walk into that castle if you’ve got a death wish.”

“So what do  _ you _ suggest, wise guy?”

“Not going in there.”

“So look. We’re agreeing that whatever this is is kinda like what happened to the guardians, right?” Red looks to Vio, in a silent plea for some sort of change of subject. “Is there anyone who knows a lot about them? Or at least was there when it started happening.”

“There’s my dad.”

“Green, shut up about your dad.”

“Why should I? He’s old, he knows stuff!”

“Okay, well, while Green’s interrogating his father, is there someone  _ else _ we can ask?”

“There is another lab in northern Akkala, run by a sheikah named Robbie. I have never visited it, but I have run into him in Kakariko before. He has claimed on several occasions to be studying them.” Vio seems apprehensive, for lack of a better term. “He once mentioned something about having an entire legion of them, all supposedly deactivated, sitting at the back of the lab. I do not know how safe that is.”

“You sure you wanna ask  _ him _ ? The way I remember it, he had a couple screws loose.”

“He has since calmed some. That was before he had a project to keep himself occupied with. The last time I saw him he seemed fine.”

Zelda shrugs. “So maybe he’s our man. Or maybe he isn’t, but either way, at least we tried.”

“I still doubt he’s gonna know much of anything.”

“Okay, Shadow,” Red says, exasperated, “I think we get it. Nothing’s ever going to work and you’ll just be stuck this way forever. But let’s just humor the rest of us and actually try some things before we give up on it, okay?”

“I dunno if you guys have ever heard of it,” Green pipes up, “But you think the whole thing about the Great Faeries might mean anything to us?”

“Oh, I know about that. There’s supposed to be one in Tabantha somewhere, but no one knows exactly where. I used to look for it sometimes, but then Zelda would yell at me for being out in the snow too long and she’d drag me back home.”

“I remember Impa saying something about one by Kakariko too. I’m pretty sure everyone just figured she was telling fairy tales to the kids again. No pun intended.”

“Well, I know the Gerudo think there’s one somewhere out in the desert. But most of them aren’t willing to risk going that deep in when there might not be anything there, so no one’s really sure.”

“Speculation does not do us much good without exact locations. We could spend months searching for what may not even exist anymore.”

“It’s something to think about, at least. We could probably ask that Robbie guy too, maybe he knows something about it, even if the guardian stuff’s a dead end.”

“So Robbie’s a definite, then?”

“Guess so. We’ve got nothing better.”

“You guys have fun,” Green says, and falls facedown on the cushion.

“Green, you’re coming with us.”

Rather than bother to respond, he starts snoring very loudly and very obviously falsely.

“This is not an option, Green.”

“So Vio gets to bitch all he wants about not wanting to go anywhere,” Green says, in an irritated mumble that’s almost inaudible, muffled by the couch as it is. “But I do one thing and suddenly I’m the worst there ever was.”

“You’re being dramatic. No one’s saying you’re the worst, we’re just all saying that you’re coming with us and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“You can’t make me.”

“I will tie you to Moka’s saddle.”

“That’s actually pretty much kidnapping and I can take you to court for it.”

“And I suppose you will go and find your own supplies from then on, yes?”

“No, I’ll just take all your stuff as settlement.”

“Settlement,” Vio snorts, derisively. “Then I will take that risk. We will need everyone along. It is not a particularly safe journey.”

“That makes me want to go even  _ less _ .”

“Doesn’t matter whether you want to go or not. You’re coming.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a monster hunter anyway?”

“I’m off duty.”

“Well, now you’re back on duty.”

“I’ve decided to take up another profession.”

“Too bad, we’re giving you your old position back. Shut up with the arguing and just agree already, ‘cause we’ve made the decision for you.”

“That’s not actually how decisions work, ‘cause see, what’s supposed to happen is you offer me a choice and then  _ I _ choose for my _ self _ and then  _ you  _ just respect whatever it is I chose.”

“Well, this is a new kind of decision called you’re coming with us whether you like it or not, so suck it up and get your shit together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been too long since i've updated, yeah?


	10. to err is human (to forgive is divine)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally... things are HAPPENING in this story...

The trip to Akkala isn’t a particularly short one, and by the time they reach the region proper, they’re about ready to kill one another. 

Shadow spooks at every little noise that sounds even remotely like another person, and Green can’t be woken up before nine in the morning, and even though Vio’s got a horse he can’t make full use of her since the rest of them are on foot. 

“Horses would make this a far simpler affair,” Vio mutters, when Red complains of the blisters on his feet after only a few hours of travel. 

“I don’t trust them.”

“They’re  _ horses _ !”

“One threw me when I was little,” Green says, defensively, “The thing almost killed me! They’re awful and I don’t trust them.”

“So  _ one _ screws up, over a decade ago, and you just assume they’re all terrible creatures.”

“It tried to  _ trample _ me.”

“I don’t think it  _ tried _ to, Green, I think you’re exaggerating-”

“Zelda, you don’t understand. I was trying to crawl away and it  _ followed _ me.”

“You have ridden Moka before.”

“Reluctantly,” Green says, in a tone that suggests that that should’ve been obvious, “She’s the one exception ‘cause I know she’s broken in and trained and you’re right here to reign her in. Those wild beasts out in the fields? No way am I getting on one of those.”

“Green,” Vio sighs, exasperated, “One of these days you are going to have to.”

“I’ll just walk.”

“You will not be able to keep pace with the rest of us.”

“I’ll run. Or I’ll steal Moka.”

“I wish you luck with that. She is just as temperamental as the wild ones.”

“Not when you’re around.”

“But I will not be around. That is the entire point of you stealing Moka.”

“The entire  _ point _ is that I’m not getting on a horse. You couldn’t pay me to do it.”

“No one’s suggesting paying you. When the time comes we’ll just make you do it, no money involved.”

“You’re supposed to be on  _ my  _ side!”

“Only when you’re right. Which you’re not.”

“Having Vio on my case is enough. Why do you have to get on me too?”

“‘Cause you’re being ridiculous.”

They reach the South Akkala stable after two and a half long, long weeks, and stop to take a break from the traveling (and from each other). Their pause lasts a few days, enough to restock supplies and muster their patience, and then they’re back on the road for the final leg of the journey.

The very beginning offers them a choice- the west path or the east, the higher ground or the lower. They each present their own unique difficulties, says the stablehand, and when inquired further, all he does is shrug.

There’s clearly an argument brewing as Blue walks over to the fork in the road and starts pointing back and forth between the two, and after a minute her finger stops on the eastern path and, that decided, starts down it. It does save them a debate- with Blue strolling down one way, they’d be hard-pressed to go the other, and so they follow her down the slope to the wetlands. It seems a nice place, quiet and tranquil, the ground spongy and littered with leaves and little half-sprouted flowers. The serenity of the place eases them out of the travel lag just a bit, and though they’d only just departed they stop a moment to explore.

Zelda points out the silhouette of a ruined building nestled among the trees, and they go to investigate it, and it’s all well and good until suddenly the wetlands aren’t as quiet.

There’s no especially loud noise, nothing dramatic or drastic to tip them off, but there’s just a little shift in the ambience that suggests that something’s off. 

It’s tense and silent for a long moment, exactly the wrong kind of silent, but nothing happens and Vio’s almost about to brush it off as a fluke when he hears something new. 

It’s a heavy sort of squelching, half-muffled by the soft wet dirt, like something half-cemented in the loam slowly pushing itself up and out, and then a terrible low metallic groan. And then he hears a short burst of clicks, and the terrifyingly familiar hum of ancient machinery, and he finds that he can’t move.

He’s frozen at the crumbling window of the ruined building, clutching at the sill like it’s the only thing keeping him upright (it is) and he only snaps out of it when Zelda puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” She asks, eases his grip on the stone, and he forces out a sigh and takes a step back, behind the wall. 

“Out there,” He says, and tries his best not to sound as shaky as he feels, and makes a vague pointing gesture in the guardian’s direction. “There is a guardian. Live. I think we woke it.”

She blinks, startled, and looks out the window and squints. “A guardian? You’re sure?”

“I heard it,” He says, takes a deep breath and stands beside her and points out the glowing pink ring weaving through the trees. “We need to leave. Now.”

She looks like she’d like to say something, but she picks up on Vio’s mood and decides it’s best to save for later, walks over and ushers Green and Red quietly back to where they’d left their things.

Red turns to try to catch a glimpse of it as they walk away. “They can’t hear, can they?”

“I don’t think so. They’ve never heard me coming, anyway.”

“They can’t. They don’t process sound. They’re only scanning for heat signatures.”

Red gives Shadow a look. “How do  _ you  _ know that?”

“‘Cause I do. The Yiga would work right with ‘em out in the fields. They only react if their scanners pick something up or if they’re getting hit. You could be banging pots and pans together behind it and as long as it doesn’t turn around it won’t do shit.”

Blue yells something to the effect of ‘hey you big metal bitch’ in its direction and it just keeps circling the same patch of trees, beeping quietly to itself, and then Shadow joins in taunting it and then Green, and Vio mutters something and kicks Moka into a gallop and rides off without them, and for a moment they’re all quiet and confused and then Shadow trips over something and Blue starts making fun of him and Vio’s forgotten in favor of keeping Shadow from trying to pick a fight.

They find Vio at the end of the wetland trail, where it meets the main road again, sitting on the hill with Moka grazing a few yards away.

Blue runs up and drops down beside him and immediately affectionately shoves him headfirst into the grass and only lets him go when he threatens to snap her new spear over his knee.

“What was that for, huh? You threw a whole fit on us, I almost took you for Shadow-”

“Shut up, will you?”

“There is no sense in taking that kind of risk,” Vio says, without meeting Blue’s eyes, “Guardians are not to be trifled with.”

“Shadow said they can’t hear anything. Why’s it matter?”

“They can  _ see  _ you,” Vio replies, irritably, “And hanging around like that, I do not doubt it would target you before long.”

“There’s no need to get bitchy about it.”

Zelda frowns at her. “What Blue  _ means _ is we just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“What I  _ mean _ is that he doesn’t have to get  _ pissy _ just ‘cause we’re having a little fun.”

“I am fine,” Vio says to Zelda, pointedly ignoring Blue, “We can continue if everyone else is ready. The lab is not far from here. Perhaps a day, if we keep a decent pace.”

After a little early lunch and several unsuccessful attempts to get Green on Moka and ease his fear a little, they give up on that particular venture and hit the road again, and Green stays a healthy distance away from them and just stops and sits down whenever someone even gives him a suspicious glance.

“So my question is,” He says, shields his eyes with a hand and tries to make out the silhouette of the lab against the sky, “How do we  _ know _ this guy’s gonna help us?”

“He has extended offers to the people of Kakariko before. I do not see why he would not do the same for us. And Shadow did once mention helping him, so he may be a bit more willing just for that.”

“Well, the funny thing about that is-”  
“Shadow.”

“Look, I’d needed an alibi then, you can hardly blame me-”

“I can blame you quite a lot, actually, considering this is  _ your _ problem we are trying to solve and you are just complicating it at every turn-”

“I’m sure if he’s the generous guy he sounds like then we won’t have any problems,” Red says, shoots Vio a look, “And we’re not really asking him to  _ do _ anything, right? Just to let us know if there’s any information he has that could help us. And he’s supposed to be an expert, yeah? I’m sure he does.”

 

“I can’t help you,” Robbie says, before they can give more than a three-sentence explanation.

“So we came all this way,” Blue says, slowly, clearly trying not to get angry, “Just for you to shut us down right off the bat?”

“Just don’t want to waste your time,” Robbie tells her, with a strange sort of cheerfulness, “I’d hate to lead you on.”

“But you study guardians,” Says Red, a little more tactfully, “Isn’t there anything you think we might need to know about them? About what happened?”

“Just to stay away if you can,” He replies, and Vio mutters an agreement something to the effect of ‘that’s what I said’.

“We’re kind of dealing with extenuating circumstances here,” Green says, “Hey, maybe in the end you can’t tell us much more than we already know, but even still we’d like to hear about them.”

Robbie seems at least a little interested at that. “Extenuating circumstances, you say? Of what nature?”

“Looking into Malice possession,” Vio tells him, with a sideways glance at Shadow, who glares at him. “There have been some creatures acting strangely near our town, and we are not sure why. We are looking into possible reasons and thought it would be best to cover all our bases.”

“Possession’s an interesting theory, but an odd one. Very much a reach. The only instance recorded of such a thing is in the guardians, and they aren’t organic creatures.”

“There have been Malice puddles lying around lately,” Blue says, meets Vio’s eyes for a moment, “I dunno, I guess the ranchers are worried some of the animals might’ve drank it. A few days before we left they saw a couple dead ones near a pool.”

“I suppose it’s a reasonable theory.” He sighs, casts a rueful look at the half-assembled metal thing at the side of the room, and stands. “I can tell you what I know and what I think,” He says, “But I can’t promise anything. This is all speculative research, you understand.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll go grab us some refreshments, then, if you don’t mind,” Robbie says, and disappears upstairs.

“Well.”

Blue holds up a hand to silence him. “Before any of us talk, I just wanna make it clear that the only reason he agreed is ‘cause of my rustic charm.”

Shadow snorts. “You don’t even know what that means.”

“Sure I do.”

“Use it in a sentence.”

“I just did.”

“Use it in another one.”

“Okay, if you don’t shut up I’ll give you a rustic ass kicking.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense!”

“Sure it does! My rustic foot connects with your stupid ass and voila. A rustic ass-kicking.”

“That’s actually kinda k-”

“Finish that sentence and I’m gonna knock your teeth in. Consider that a friendly warning.”

“Sure it’s not a  _ rustic  _ warning?”

“Please,” Zelda says, sounding tired already, “Please don’t start an argument in this man’s foyer.”

“Blue’s misusing words.”

“Shadow’s being a pain in the ass.”

“Am I a rustic pain in the ass?”

“You’re not even funny. Like if you’re gonna make fun of my words then you at least have to make it funny, but nothing you say is funny. It’s just stupid and sad.”

“Am I going to have to put one of you outside.”

“Make it Blue. She’s  _ rustic _ .”

“What the hell’s that got to do with it?”

Shadow elbows Vio in the side and earns himself a glare. “Settle this.”

“I have not been listening. I do not plan to.”

“Just one simple question. What does rustic mean?”

Vio looks to Zelda. “Should I bother?”

“It’ll only make them worse.”

“It means shut up and stop making issues of irrelevant things while we are doing something important.”

“Oh, fine! Is there a reference here? There’s gotta be a reference here. Actually screw it, we can ask Robbie when he gets back and then we’ll see who’s stupid.”

“Don’t drag him into this!”

“You’re only saying that ‘cause you know you’re wrong.”

Robbie chooses that moment to return, with a tray of bread and apples and some water, and he sets it all on a low table before them and sits back in a padded chair opposite them.

Shadow opens his mouth to say something, but Zelda’s glance is warning and Green’s outright elbowing convinces him to keep quiet.

“So you want to know about Malice,” He says, slowly, pours himself a glass of water and sips at it. “Forgive me if I get a little ahead of myself. I tend to forget that others don’t share my knowledge on the guardians and their plight. I should probably ask before anything else what all you already know.”

“Not much,” Says Zelda, ruefully.

“We know some basic history,” Green adds, “About Ganon and what he did to them.”

“I expect you know more than most,” Robbie says, and it takes Vio a moment to realize he’s talking to him.

“Perhaps,” Vio agrees, a little self-conscious and certainly not comfortable. “The sheikah education is thorough.”

“Ah, well, I wasn’t talking about that, but I suppose it’s not a thing you bring up in polite conversation, yes?” He either doesn’t notice or ignores Vio’s cold (and somewhat unnerved) glare. “In any case,” He continues, fiddling with his mug, “Well, I won’t recount the whole of history to you all, but suffice to say that Ganon has been a very powerful entity for a very long time. It seems that in this reincarnation he has forgone the physical form he has been said to take in lives past.”

“He was a Gerudo once,” Green remarks, “Although I don’t know what else.”

“He was a Gerudo once,” Robbie agrees, with a pleased smile. “A much revered warrior and thief and celebrated as the first male of his tribe in a century, although how he came to be as such remains a mystery. He has taken other forms as well- something resembling a hylian, although not quite. A massive beast, similar to a boar. A tall bestial creature, neither man nor animal. But this time he’s chosen none of these things. He’s incorporeal now, merely a concentration of the magic he bends to his will. He can shift his form at will and he can put pieces of himself into other entities-” At this, Shadow flinches, and hopes Robbie hasn’t noticed- “-and this is how the guardians fell, and how the divine beasts were taken. It seems he’s finally abandoned subtlety. The ruling theory is that this is his last-ditch effort, frustrated as he is by all his past failures. And I’m sorry to say that it looks to be working.”

“Not completely,” Is Green’s vehement protest, “He’s stuck in the castle.”

“Be that as it may, he doesn’t have to be outside the castle to influence what happens in Hyrule. Again I point you to the guardians and the divine beasts. All he must do is parcel out his magic to the creatures that do his bidding. And, may I add, the castle will not contain him forever. The walls are in shambles, and it is only our lamented princess that keeps him bound within them. She’s held out decades already- who can say how much longer she’ll last?”

“That’s a pretty bleak outlook for someone who was supposed to have served the princess,” Blue says, irritated, “Do all the sheikah give up this easily?”

It seems for a moment that the conversation is over: Robbie stares at her, implacable, hardly moving. But he smiles at her, coolly, disarmingly, and gently sets his cup on the table. 

“My dear girl,” He says, “I don’t believe you’ve seen the force we call the Calamity. And I’d hate to think that all the hylians are so quick to assume these things. I’ve stood in the ruins of the castle and I’ve buried the bodies of my brothers and sisters who fell to him. I’ve seen him with my own eyes, and I can tell you that he could swallow the whole of your population and think of it as little more than a snack. Don’t presume to call us cowards.”

There’s a long silence, awkward and tense- it’s difficult to follow up a statement like that, and seems rude to push past it. Robbie hardly seems affected, as though he’s altogether unaware of the atmosphere of the room, and continues when he sees that no one else will, which takes what feels like an eternity.

“In any case, he isn’t someone you want to underestimate,” He says almost cheerfully. “I assume you know he’s a holder of the Triforce? Well, my theory is that Malice is a manifestation of his piece- power. Most of the sheikah say it’s ridiculous and outlandish, but to me it’s only plain sense. Anything tainted with Malice becomes stronger than its base form, and not only does it become stronger, it becomes more aggressive, often a side effect of power, might I add. And the Yiga, loath as I am to even mention their name here, they’re far more powerful than any sheikah has ever been despite being sheikah themselves. I don’t have any firsthand data to go off of, but I can easily guess that that’s because of Ganon’s influence. They’re his worshippers, after all. What else could it be?”

Shadow is fidgety and restless where he sits, inexcusably so, and Red elbows him hard in the back. He snaps at Red, and Red only snaps back.

“Settle down,” Red mutters. “You look guilty.”

“I  _ am  _ guilty!”

“At least act like you’re not!”

“Easier said than done,” Shadow mutters, but relents, and does his best to keep still.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than that,” Robbie says, apologetic, “The research comes along slowly, and all I know of the guardians is that they’re corrupted, irreversibly so. I believe the only way to get them back under our control is to rid the land of Ganon entirely. A daunting task, but someone must come along and do it eventually, or there isn’t much hope for any of us.”

 

Blue’s the first one to speak as they leave. “So you know what we’ve gotta do, right?”

“Go home and call it a day?”

She levels a glare at Shadow. “No.”

“That’s the realistic solution here.”

“I’m going to ignore the urge to punch you right now and say that there’s an obvious course of action to follow.”

“And what would that be?”

“Kill Ganon. Duh.”

There’s a long silence, and the look they all share is one of bewilderment and surprise, and finally Shadow says “I’m sorry,  _ that’s  _ the  _ obvious _ course of action?”

“Blue, hold on, I know we have to do  _ something _ but I think you’re getting ahead of yourself.”

“No I’m not. This is the only thing we’re sure of, right? So let’s not waste time and let’s just go ahead and get started.”

“We aren’t  _ sure _ of  _ anything _ ! The only thing I’m sure of is that you’re an idiot-”

“And I’m sure that you’re being an ungrateful ass,” Blue shoots back, and shoves him, and Shadow glares at her. “I mean, we just offered-”

Red is incredulous. “ _ We _ ?”

“ _ We _ ,” Blue insists, elbows him and gets elbowed by Zelda in return, “Just offered to take care of your personal problem in probably the biggest-”

“And most dangerous-”

“-way possible, and you’re trying to insult us for it?”

“There is no  _ us _ ,” Vio says, staring directly at Blue, “Not in such a shallow plan.”

“Figures  _ you’d _ cucco out, yeah? Then the rest of us will-”

“I’m with Vio,” Green says, immediately, “I can’t just agree to that right off the bat.”

“At the least we’ve gotta sit down and talk about it,” Red agrees, and meets Blue’s eyes unflinchingly when she turns to glare at him as well.

“I’m not risking my life and my brother’s life and my friends’ lives for nothing.” Zelda rests a hand on Blue’s shoulder, friendly but unyielding. “We’ll make camp for the night and talk this over before we decide  _ anything _ .”

“You’re all cowards.”

“Better a coward than a corpse.”

“Easy for you to say, I bet you’ve never been in real danger your entire life-”

“I’m in  _ real danger _ of kicking your ass.”

Eventually Blue abandons her antagonism, primarily because Zelda and Vio agree to deny her a bed if she continues, and she takes up grumbling to herself until they find a suitable spot near the shores of Bloodleaf Lake to settle for the night.

“Okay,” Says Blue the very second she’s staked her tent, “Let’s talk so we can just agree and get this over with. The plan is we kill Ganon. Any dissenters? No? Fantastic, it’s agreed, we’ll proceed immediately.”

“All right,” Vio says, “I will humor you. How will we kill the Calamity?”

“With weapons, obviously. Thought you were the smart one.”

“Yes, because that worked out very well for our Champion.”

“We have six weapons instead of one.”

“The one weapon was also the weapon forged and blessed specifically to defeat Ganon, and it failed. You expect a fishing spear to somehow accomplish what the Blade of Evil’s Bane did not?”

“We’ll pick up better ones first, idiot.”

Vio’s expression is utterly unimpressed. “I think we may be speaking of different Calamities. I am speaking of the Calamity, capital C, King of Thieves and the Champions’ end. Have you found a moblin named Calamity?”

“Okay,  _ genius _ ,” Blue snaps, “What’s your plan?”

“My plan would ideally be not to bother with Ganon at all, but I am certain you would not allow that.”

“And you’re damn right.”

“I appreciate your enthusiasm,” Red says, delicately, “But I… if five of the strongest people in Hyrule and their divine weapons, alongside the princess and her magic, couldn’t bring him down, what makes you think we can?”

“Sheer force of will.”

Red gives her a look. “Blue, I really hope you’re joking.”

“I’m not as stupid as you think I am,” She says, testily, “Of course I was joking. About that last thing, anyway. But c’mon, it’s worth a try, right? It’d be a trip to remember anyway.”

“It’d be a trip to the grave, maybe,” Shadow sneers. “Hey, want me to magic you a hole to crawl into and save you the trouble of all that walking? What d’you want on your headstone? What kind of flowers?”

“You’re  _ welcome _ , Shadow, for being in your corner despite how big of an ass you are to me all the time.”

“ _ I’m _ not even in my corner right now! This isn’t a fight, it’s suicide, and you know it and I know it and so does everyone else.”

“We don’t even know where to begin,” Green says, and Blue’s about to round on him, but he puts his hands up in mock-surrender, and quickly adds “ _ But _ that doesn’t mean we can’t find out! Theoretically, anyway, and at least we can say we tried if it doesn’t work out.”

“We don’t even know where to begin to find out,” Red says, dismally, “It isn’t like we can ask. The only people who might’ve known are dead, or close to it.”

There’s a moment of silence, wherein Vio and Shadow share a look, meaningful and tense and uncertain all at once.

“Loath as I am to enable Blue and her folly, there may be one person, though I have not spoken to her in some time. Impa- the sheikah elder- was alive when everything happened.”

“Alive,” Shadow agrees, “And, more importantly, orchestrating a lot of what was going on. If anyone would know it’d be her.”

“So what? We just march up and ask how to kill Ganon?”

“Something like that.”

It is not, of course, that simple. They make the journey easily enough, with Vio to guide them (though the path isn’t far off from the one to Hateno, and easy to find besides). They make it to the pass leading into the village without trouble and with little interruption, until they reach the gate.

Two armed sheikah guards politely look their party over as they approach and politely deny them access, hooked spears crossed and blocking their way.

They’re apologetic but firm when Vio, surprised and indignant, and experiencing the unnerving sensation of déjà vu, asks why they can’t enter.

“You can,” They say to Vio, “But not the rest of them.” They have yet to get a good look at Shadow, cowering behind the rest of the group, or they might nod him in as well, albeit with some confusion- unfamiliar sheikah are rare in the village.

“You know the rules,” The first guard says (Vio can’t quite remember her name).

“Maybe he doesn’t, at that,” The second says- after a moment Vio recalls her as Koya, and as among the more sympathetic towards him after Shadow’s disappearance. “I know it’s been a while since he’s visited.”

“No one that isn’t sheikah,” The first tells him; he recognizes that tone, now, and that line. She’s Ori, and she’s certainly never gone out of her way to be friendly to him. “Security measures. The Yiga are everywhere these days-” Shadow stiffens- “And it’s hard to know who we can trust.”

“I hope you all can forgive us,” Koya says. “We don’t like to be so isolated, but it’s a necessary evil, in times like these. Even so, we can bring you a hot meal, at the very least. I would hate for you to have come all this way for nothing at all.”

They accept, frustrated though they are, and set their camp in a patch of grass directly outside the pass and wait for their promised meal.

“So now what?”

“I’m not sure.”

“ _ Vio _ ,” Blue says pointedly, “Could have  _ warned _ us that the sheikah all have sticks up their asses.”

“I have not visited in some time,” Vio says, irritably. “And even if I had there would be no reason for me to know this. I never bring company here.”

“D’you think Impa will come out here to talk to us?”

“I doubt it,” Shadow tells him, “She’s always been too important for them to risk. They wouldn’t let her meet with a group of strangers.”

“She may want to,” Vio muses, but after a moment shakes his head, frowning. “But they are very protective of her.”

“Well,” Says Red, slowly, “ _ You _ aren’t a stranger, right?”

“No.” Vio’s reply is wary.

“And neither is Shadow,” Blue adds, and nudges him. “Right?”

“Actually I am,” Is Shadow’s response, hurried and anxious, “Or as good as one anyway. To them I’ve been dead for a decade, remember? I mean- I can’t just go walking back in there, it’s- it’s been years, and even if they don’t recognize me at first they’re gonna wanna know who I am and how am I supposed to explain that?” He’s worked himself half into a panic already, and stubbornly he scoots back and crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m not doing it. You couldn’t pay me to take that risk.”

Red scowls at him. “You  _ agreed  _ to come here.”

“I  _ agreed _ to what Vio said about Impa. I didn’t  _ agree _ to go walking in there and just- just shout it from the rooftops-”

“No one said anything about shouting anything from the rooftops,” Zelda says, “And honestly, Shadow, you’re being dramatic.”

“No, I’m not,” Shadow snaps. “Real easy for you to say when you’re not the one who’s gotta say it!  _ One word _ about me being a- a- a  _ you know _ and I’m dead! Instantly! Right on the spot! They aren’t playing around, they’re not just gonna say ‘okay’ and move on with their lives and forget about it-”

“Shadow,” Vio says, firmly, “Enough.”

“Don’t  _ enough _ me, Vio, this is  _ serious _ -”

“I am aware.” He meets Shadow’s glare with impassivity. “You forget that I have been among the sheikah as well. I am far too well acquainted with their hatred of the Yiga.”

“So then you know that this is a bad idea!”

“So I  _ know _ that this is the only way to do this that will end well for you.”

“ _ What _ ?”

“Listen,” Vio says loudly, before Shadow can get it in his head to start ranting again, “Listen to me. Learn from what happened when we found out. Impa at least will look far more kindly upon you if you are forthright. They will likely be more forgiving if you volunteer the information.”

“If they have to find out like we did it’s going to be suspicious,” Zelda agrees.

Shadow is glaring daggers at them all. “You’re insane.”

“We are thinking this through.”

“They’re going to  _ kill  _ me,” Shadow hisses, just as Koya comes up bearing a wooden tray laden with food.

“Sorry to take so long,” She says, with an appropriately contrite smile, “But I’m here now, and with some supper for everyone! It’s a Kakariko special, with our very own pumpkins.”

They accept it, hungry and grateful for a fresh meal, and just as Koya turns to go back to her post for the night Vio stops her.

“Pardon me,” He says, “I will not trouble you for long, but do you think that I could speak to Impa?”

She looks surprised. “Now?”

“Oh, no, not now. Tomorrow, if possible.”

“Well, I- I can check with her, certainly, I’m sure she can see you in the morning- may I ask why?”

“A personal matter,” He says, intentionally vague. “Something to do with someone we know.”

Koya clearly is confused, but too polite to ask after it, and she nods. “I’ll pass that along to her, if she’s awake now- if not I’ll let her know in the morning, as soon as she’s up. I can come and fetch you when she’s ready.”

“I appreciate it,” Vio says, and watches her go, feigning obliviousness to Shadow’s anger beside him.

“Vio?” Shadow’s tone is at once light and bitter.

“Can I help you?” Vio replies with a tone to match.

“I don’t suppose you just want to catch up with her for old times’ sake?”

“ _ We _ will be catching up with her in the morning. I suggest you get a good night’s rest. You are going to have a lot of explaining to do, I expect.”

“Vio,” Shadow says, slowly, deliberately, “What the  _ fuck _ are you thinking?”

“I am thinking we are going to get this matter cleared up very soon.”

Shadow sputters for a moment, furious and terrified, can’t seem to find the words to express it so instead says “I could leave. Right now. Just- just  _ poof _ and I’m gone and you’ll never see me again.”

Vio meets his eyes- coolly, implacably, utterly unfazed, yet issuing a subtle challenge. “All right,” He says, “Go on, then.”

Shadow is acutely aware of the tension, so thick he could slice it, of their eyes on him, practically burning holes into his back. Uncomfortable, he shifts, but otherwise doesn’t move and doesn’t speak. Vio’s gaze doesn’t waver.

“Well? Off with you, if you are going.”

“Go to hell,” Shadow sneers, and puts all his attention into eating, ignores whatever smug look Vio is surely giving him right now. It’s been a long time since he’s had fresh Kakariko pumpkin, and it still tastes like home. (He’s missed it.)

Vio likewise ignores the looks they’re giving him and finishes his food and stows his loose belongings back in his bags. “So,” He says finally, “Shadow and I will be speaking with her in the morning. I do not know how long it will take and I doubt any of you want to wait out here all day. If you like you can return to Hateno and we will meet you when we have finished.”

“Assuming I’m still alive,” Shadow mutters, and the chunk of bread Zelda throws at him only barely misses.

“I dunno about them, but if Shadow dies I wanna see.”

“What Blue means is we’ll stay,” Red corrects her, bitingly polite, placing himself directly between her and Shadow.

“Yeah, it’s no big deal,” Green agrees. “It’s nice up here. And I wouldn’t mind resting for a little while.”

“Just have them send out more of whatever this is,” Zelda adds (her dish is scraped clean). “I think we’ll survive.”

Vio shrugs. “If you say so. But I do not want to hear your complaints if it gets uncomfortable. The hills are humid by afternoon.”

Zelda offers to take first watch- though they hardly need it, close to Kakariko as they are- and Shadow pointedly moves his bedroll far away from Vio’s.

“I am so very wounded,” Vio says, flatly, face devoid of any expression. “How ever will I overcome this insult.”

“Screw off.”

“I believe you have done that for me.”

Shadow (very maturely) raises his middle finger and then, when he’s confident Vio has gotten the message, petulantly rolls over to face away from the rest of them.

“We’re all adults here,” Zelda says caustically. “Professional and mature, every one of us.”

“Of course,” Red agrees, voice oozing sarcasm, “How could anyone think otherwise?”

Despite numerous other jabs, most indirectly directed at Shadow, he has no more outbursts that night, too absorbed in his silent anxious brooding. It’s all a terrible idea, every last bit of it, vague though it may be. It’s ridiculous to think they could ever hope to rival Ganon, stupid and impossible and probably suicidal- they should’ve rejected the notion as soon as it came up. And then to follow through on it, or try to, and bring him to the place where he’s probably least welcome in all of Hyrule, and force him to walk among people who wouldn’t hesitate to put an arrow through his throat if they knew him for what he was (is?). It’s insanity, plain and simple, and he’d walk right away if only he had someplace to walk away to.

For all his muttering and complains and all his threats of leaving, he stays, and tries not to flinch when Koya fetches them come morning.

“Impa is ready for you,” She says, sounds out of breath, and gestures back towards the village. “Terribly sorry I can’t walk you there, Vio, dear, but morning patrol calls- I shouldn’t even be out here- but you’re welcome to stop by my house this afternoon for lunch!” She runs off, back through the pass, and Vio gives Shadow a look, and stands.

“We will be back as soon as we have news,” Vio tells Green, who’s half asleep on the last legs of second watch.

“‘Kay,” Green replies, slurred by fatigue, and watches as they disappear between the cliffs.

They’re hardly a few feet out of sight when Shadow starts to freeze up.

“Vio,” He says, voice sticking in his throat, “Let’s just go back, or at least let me, this isn’t a good idea-”

“Be that as it may, it is the best we have.”

“Vio,” He says desperately, and clutches at Vio’s shoulder. “They’re going to  _ kill _ me. You don’t understand! They’ll  _ know _ , they always do, and I’ll be dead before we get halfway to Impa, I bet, and you’re acting like we’re going in for a chat about the weather! This is- this is bullshit- I can’t do this, Vio, I really can’t-”

Vio cuts him off and grabs him by the shoulders, grip tight and just shy of painful and somehow grounding. “Shut up,” He says, gravely.

“I’m sorry,  _ what _ -”

“Shut up,” Vio repeats, not a trace of amusement in his face. “Save your babbling for Impa. You have an awful lot of talking to do already without adding this nonsense on top of it. Get yourself under control, Shadow. If you are honest and forthcoming then you will be all right.” He releases Shadow and keeps walking, then, and leaves Shadow to keep up.

“And how do you  _ know  _ that? How do you know they won’t kill me on sight?”

“They are wary, Shadow, not barbaric. If Impa clears you then they will accept you, and I am certain they will be overjoyed to learn you are alive, your… condition notwithstanding. Now please,” Vio says as they step into the village, “Try to keep yourself together at least until her door closes behind us.”

Shadow tries not to stare, really he does, but it’s so difficult not to- this is his  _ home _ , the place he’d not dared to visit for twelve years; how he’d ever wanted to leave he has no idea. It hasn’t changed at all, not that he can see, still with the pumpkin patch and the little plum tree grove and the cucco coop and the pond with its statue of Hylia. But the sentries scattered about the hills are new, and he doesn’t miss them, and he shrinks from their gaze.

It seems that the sentries are the only ones awake at so early an hour, and their walk goes uninterrupted, and even the guards at Impa’s doors hardly interfere.

“Go right in,” Says one, pushing the heavy wood door open, “She’s dressing now- she’ll be down in just a moment.”

Shadow thinks he might pass out as they walk in, between the rows of cushions, as the door clicks shut behind them. He’d expected a slam, something heavier. Somehow the quiet seems more final.

His feet are heavy and he’s numb and cold all over and somehow still sweating; the air in the room is stifling, almost suffocating. Only distantly does he feel Vio’s hand on his arm (right on his bandages: right on his brand).

“Relax,” Vio murmurs, uselessly.

Shadow doesn’t know how long they wait. All he knows is that his heart stops the moment he sees her feet coming down the stairs.

Impa doesn’t seem to notice him immediately. “It is good to see you, Vio, my dear, it has been far too long since you’ve last visited-” She stops short as she reaches the bottom of the stairs, finally looks up from under her headdress and sees Shadow standing there, stock-still, petrified.

For a long moment, an unbearable eternity, she says nothing, does nothing. Stares.

Then she takes an unsteady step forward, one hand coming up to clutch at her chest, the other outstretched and reaching for him. “Jati,” She breathes, barely audible even to them, only a few feet away.

Shadow blinks. It’s been so long, so very long since anyone’s called him that.

“I don’t go by that anymore,” Is all he can choke out.

She takes a deep breath, draws herself up to her full proud height and looks him square in the eyes. (They’re both crying, though neither will admit it.)

“Come, both of you,” She says, softly, and beckons them towards her cushion at the head of the temple. “It seems we have much to discuss.”

Vio offers to leave, to give them privacy; to his surprise both of them decline (Vio suspects that Shadow still thinks he’s in mortal danger).

“I want to hear your part in this,” Impa tells him, waves him forward. “And I am happy to see you besides.”

Vio fetches them cushions- Shadow still seems stunned, and not likely to move unless he’s physically prompted to. When he kneels on the cushion, legs folded awkwardly to the side, he does so stiffly, unpracticed, and he’s noticeably closer to Vio and noticeably distant from Impa, though they sit hardly a few feet apart.

“Jati,” Impa says again, almost reverently- it’s like it’s a word nearly forgotten to her, and she’s reacquainting herself with the taste of it.

Shadow (Jati?) visibly winces. “I… no one calls me that. Not anymore.”

“Then what do I call you?”

He hesitates. Should he really insist upon using his Yiga-given name? But yes, of course he should: he was Jati for only eight years, most faded from his memory. He’s been Shadow for twelve, and his past can’t be so easily undone. “Shadow,” He says. “It’s my nickname, I guess.”

“You have been elusive as one, all these years.” She pauses, and looks him over with melancholy eyes and sighs. “Where have you been?”

He spares a glance at Vio, who only nods. “With the Yiga,” He confesses.

He studies her face carefully as she digests this news. It’s shock at first, powerful and absolute, and then sadness and disappointment and then anger, and then it settles into an odd perturbed acceptance.

“The Yiga,” She repeats, softly.

“I left years ago,” He says, not an excuse (as if anything could excuse it), only an explanation, and what he’s certain is a pathetic one, at that. “And I didn’t want to. Not ever. I never planned to. It just… happened.”

“Tell me about it,” She says, resolutely. It isn’t a request. “Everything you can.”

So he does, in as much detail as he can bear to give her. He owes her that. She knows already of his time in Kakariko, of course, and his orphaning, so he begins with his departure from the village. He explains his preparations, how he’d figured out where to go and how to get there (and for Vio’s sake doesn’t mention their conversation all those years ago). He tells her the path he’d walked, the stable he’d stopped at, describes the disguised Yiga who had followed him to the hollow at the foot of Crenel Peak. He recounts how he’d been cornered there, young and unarmed and at the mercy of his race’s most vicious foe, and how he’d joined them as a way to survive- he’d had no choice, if there’d been any other way he’d have taken it, this he stresses to Impa, and she nods sympathetically, and asks about his time with them.

Another eight agonizing years to relive for her. It makes him sick, to think of all that he’s done for them, but all the same, like a child confessing before the temple idol, he spills the horrible things he’s seen and done while in their service. There’s so much he knows he can’t (or won’t) remember, but he tells her everything he can, anything that could help: the master’s name, the structure of the clan, the past assignments and what their plans had been when he’d left, the sheikah he knows they’d killed and why and how.

“Have you ever killed one of us?” She asks, almost patronizing in her gentle tone.

“No,” Is Shadow’s immediate, earnest answer. At least he can say that. “I did a lot of things. But never that.” He thinks for a moment, then adds nervously “I… I did attack one once. They were testing me, soon after they’d inducted me. But I didn’t kill him.”

“Did he die later?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, now that I think about it. They stitched a new sheikah name onto the list a few days afterward.”

“What did you do? And why him?”

“I don’t know why,” He admits. “I was still kinda young and I didn’t care so much why. I don’t know that there  _ was _ a real reason. He was there and convenient, I guess.”

“And what happened?” She’s looking at him with her full unwavering attention, and he finds himself unable to hold her gaze, abashed.

“I’d only been learning to use magic for a week by then, and they wanted to test my competency, or that’s what they told me, at least. They sent me to get the guy- I don’t remember his name, I didn’t really want to- and specifically just the guy. No one else. He was in a little camp, set up with a few other people in that field kinda north of Crenel. It’s- uh- Trilby, I think? Sorry, it was like ten years ago and I never go that far, but I think it’s Trilby Field or plain or something.”

Vio’s been sidelined for just about the entire time, and he’s acted it, silent and sort of slumped, tired and only half-listening, mostly just letting them have their conversation uninterrupted. Now, however, and in fact since the mention of the attacked sheikah in the camp, he’s sitting up straight, eyes on Shadow, intent and, underneath, uneasy. Shadow doesn’t understand the sudden change and doesn’t know that he wants to, and he turns back to Impa.

“I was approaching the camp, but I wasn’t really good with the stealth part yet, and their sentry saw me and raised the alarm. I… managed to do some damage, with magic. But they surrounded me quick and I panicked and left. I was kinda glad, though, ‘cause I didn’t want to hurt him at all. It gave me an excuse not to finish the job.”

He looks up, heart heavy and stomach churning with shame, expecting Impa to be looking back with that same unreadable expression. Instead he finds that Impa is looking at Vio with something that he thinks is concern but might easily be pity, and that Vio isn’t looking at either of them but rather at the floor, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles are blanched. Shadow wants to ask what’s wrong, but something about the atmosphere quickly dissuades him of that.

“You said you had friends waiting beyond the village, correct? You go ahead and bring them in, Vio, dear, we will find them a place, and see if Koya isn’t off her rounds yet. I will have need of her tonight.”

It’s an invitation for Vio to leave and work out whatever problem he’s having, Shadow recognizes this easily enough. Vio does too, and accepts without a word. Shadow waits for Impa to call him back, chastise him for an impolite departure and demand that he try again. He waits in vain. Impa only watches him go, a troubled look in her eyes, and sighs as the door closes behind him- they’re alone now, and Impa looks at him.

“I’m sorry,” He says, finally, weakly, when he can bear the oppressive stillness no longer. “For everything.”

“You are a foolish child,” Impa says, somehow sour and fond at once. “One misstep and you bring a world of troubles upon yourself. But,” She says after a pause, “I forgive you.  _ We _ forgive you. You were only a child, then, and could not have known better. And you are here now, a miracle, and with valuable information. Yes, we will forgive you.”

She opens her arms, and suddenly overcome with emotion, he goes to her and rests his head on her shoulder and pretends he isn’t crying.

“Welcome home,” She says, with a warmth seldom heard from the sheikah elder. “We have missed you.”

It’s a while before he lets go, and when he does Impa rests her hand on his shoulder.

“This is not a secret I can keep for you, Shadow. The people of this village have a right to know what you’ve told me.”

He sighs. He’d expected that, but that doesn’t make it any less nerve-wracking. “I know,” He says, “But… do I have to- it’s just, they might…”

“I will not make you bear the news to them,” She tells him. It’s only marginally reassuring. “You have come back to us and you’ve told me all that you can, and that, I think, is enough. I will call them here while Vio fetches your companions and gets a place to stay. I trust they’re aware of your history?”

“Not in so much detail. But they know. It’s kinda why we’re here- something to do with it, anyway, that we wanted to talk to you about.”

“We can discuss it after we have made our announcement to the village. They will all be busy with preparations, I’m certain. Idin,” She calls, loudly, startling Shadow, and a moment later the door opens and a guard peers in. “Call everyone in, wouldn’t you? I have some important news to share with the village this morning.”

“Is something wrong?” Idin looks nervous- he seems young, and new to the job. “Should I raise an alarm?”

“No, dear, nothing like that,” She tells him with affectionate tolerance. “Have everyone gather, as soon as possible. The sentries must attend as well- send Tulo to run for them. This gathering will not be a long one.”

He nods, bows to her, and the door closes and they can hear footsteps retreating.

Shadow is anxious again. “Should I go upstairs?” He asks, beginning to stand. “Just in case, y’know, if someone-”

She holds him by the wrist and pulls him to sit. “Nonsense,” She says, as though the very implication is unthinkable. “You ought to be here before them as I tell them. They will be happy to have you back from death, not so angry about your past. This I know. For you to have forsaken the Yiga, that is a gift and a blessing, and surely they will understand that it may in reality prove useful.”

“But say they don’t-”

“Then I will enforce my authority as elder.”

“And if they decide to ignore you? Or turn against you too?”

“Hylia protects the young and the foolish. I am no longer young, but I am a fool for ever allowing this to happen.”

Shadow wants to comfort her or reassure her or something- it wasn’t her fault, wasn’t anyone’s but his own, and he wants to tell her that. But he doesn’t know how to do that, doesn’t know what to say, and he isn’t sure it’d work even if he did, so he stays quiet and waits.

When the first few people push tentatively into the temple, mumbling among themselves, Shadow shrinks back into his cushion in the corner and hopes that they don’t see him, or at least that they won’t acknowledge him. He can’t make out what they’re saying as they sit, but they seem concerned, not angry, and that’s a small comfort.

As more trickle in and find a place to sit (all after bowing to Impa, as courtesy demands), Impa stands, murmurs to Shadow to stay where he is and walks among the rows of cushions, speaking softly to them. Concern is the general atmosphere of the room, and it doesn’t seem to dissipate even though Impa appears to be trying to reassure them. There’s a collective mumble going through the room as Impa walks to the front and doesn’t sit- only important, pressing business dictates that the elder stand when delivering news.

She looks back at him, briefly. He avoids her gaze.

She holds up a hand; the temple falls silent immediately. “Do not be worried,” Is the first thing she says to the crowd. “I have good news for the village today. I am certain you all remember the young boy we lost twelve years ago, Jati.”

“Do we know what happened?” Asks a young woman towards the front- Shadow thinks he recognizes her, vaguely, but he doesn’t recall a name.

“We do,” Says Impa with a trace of a smile. “Now, you must take a moment to process what I tell you, and you must consider it carefully and with rationality. I now know what happened to the boy Jati. He is right here,” She says, and gestures to Shadow, sitting timidly beside her. 

The temple is still, briefly. Then it seems that everyone erupts with noise, mostly questions intended for them, shouted in futility over the clamor.

“Silence,” Impa commands. She isn’t loud, but the ferocity and the tone is enough to shut them up. “I understand that we all have questions, but I will not tolerate this chaos in my hall. I will tell you what you need to know if you will listen.”

“Are you okay?”

It takes Shadow a second to realize that the question, asked by a woman near the front, is directed at him. Startled, he only nods.

“Are you mute? Elder Impa, is he-”

“Enough,” Impa firmly interrupts her, putting an abrupt end to the chatter in the room. “He is not mute, but he has gone through a great deal, and he has spent the past several hours explaining it all to me. I do not expect him to repeat himself, so I will convey to you what is necessary to know. He left the village of his own volition, and was kidnapped by the Yiga shortly afterwards.”

That isn’t completely accurate, actually, and sheepishly he reaches for Impa’s arm- Impa shakes her head at him.

“I am not finished,” She says to him, and then turns back to her audience. “Now, I could leave it at that and let you have only that as the truth. But Shadow- for that is the name he has earned in his absence- has asked that I tell you all exactly as it happened. He was not kidnapped, per se; he was cornered by a member of the clan, and chose to join them in order to survive.”

There’s a collective gasp, and everyone’s talking at once, and afraid of what he might hear he pulls his knees to his chest and lets his head fall between them.

“Is he still with them?”

“No,” Impa tells them, with a tone that implies that the question is ludicrous and the answer obvious. “Of course not.”

“How long have you been rogue?”

A direct question. Shadow dreads having to speak about it, but he figures that he’ll have to eventually. “Four years,” He says, cutting off Impa’s scold. His voice comes out weak. “Almost five. Left the night after a blood moon and just ran. I didn’t come back here ‘cause it was too predictable. They would’ve found me in a week and I didn’t want to put any of you in danger ‘cause of my idiot mistake. Mostly I just kept moving the first few months. Then I ran into Vio on the road and I’ve been with him and his friends in Hateno since.”

“Why didn’t  _ he _ bring you back? Or at least send word to us?” It’s a curious question, not angry. Shadow eases up a little.

“He didn’t recognize me. We hardly ever spoke anyway, before, and it was a decade ago, and I, uh, I’ve changed since then. Up until like a month ago he didn’t know I was… well, me.”

“No more harassing him,” Impa says before anyone can ask anything else (Shadow is grateful). “You all are going to be busy this afternoon, I imagine, and I must speak with our visitors before tonight. This gathering is dismissed, and I trust that everyone knows their roles.”

“Visitors? But-”

“An exception. I made the rule and I may break it.” Her tone is playful but discourages argument.

Impa ushers them out, all the while reminding them that she loves them all dearly and as children to her, and sends Idin to summon the rest of their group. When they arrive Impa is the perfect picture of hospitality, with cushions spread before her, one for each of them, and a tray of tea and honeyed apple ordered specially for the occasion. (Shadow has to laugh.)

She greets them warmly, directs them to their seats with gentle patience (Vio knows where he’s going, of course, and sits in the spot farthest from them (?)), offers them refreshments and then settles directly into her business tone.

“From what little Shadow has told me about the nature of this conversation, you are not here with anything good to discuss.”

“Well, that depends on how you look at it,” Green says, already walking on eggshells.

“Be blunt. I have seen the Calamity- nothing you say can be so bad as that.”

“Funny you say that,” Red says with a cheer he doesn’t quite feel at the prospect. “The Calamity is just what we want to talk about.”

Impa raises an eyebrow.

“We want to know how one might- completely hypothetically- defeat it.” Zelda’s side eye at Blue, though brief, is fierce.

Impa snorts. “You are all children and this is nonsense. I will not send six young lives to their ends, and particularly not when two are my own wards and one I have only just gotten back. I am grateful for the help you’ve given Shadow- I will not repay the debt with death.”

“We’ll go anyway,” Blue tells her matter-of-factly.

“Blue-” Red hisses, but she doesn’t let him get any farther than that.

“It’s already part of the plan,” Blue continues, deaf to their protests. “We just thought you could tell us something that might help along the way.”

“I was not born yesterday, dear child.”

“Clearly.” (Zelda elbows Blue hard in the side.)

Though it’s meant to be derogatory, Impa smiles at that just a little. “Insults will not sway me either.”

“Look- you said you don’t want to repay debt with death, right? We’re definitely dead if you don’t help. But if you cooperate and help us with this plan maybe it’ll work. Do you really want your stubbornness to be responsible for six deaths?”

“Hey, who said six?” Green asks. “I’m not a definite.”

“Your friend has more sense than you.” Impa sighs. “But I will answer your questions, if only to keep you quiet. What is your plan?”

“We haven’t gotten quite that far,” Shadow admits sheepishly. “This is kinda Blue’s thing.”

“The plan is we kill Ganon,” Blue corrects him. “It’s just the steps in between that  _ we  _ need help with.”

“And she’s assuming there  _ is _ a we,” Red adds. “I want to help Shadow. But I’m not going anywhere if it’s gonna kill us, and I think the rest of them, who all have common sense and a brain, agree.”

“Red,” Blue says, her tone almost conspiratorial, “You’re my favorite so I’m not gonna get mad. But shut up.”

Impa seems unbothered by the bickering. “I can tell you what the plan used to be,” She interrupts them, “When the Champions still lived. We had the Divine Beasts and their pilots then, and the sacred blade and its wielder, and Zelda to finish the task. We lack all of those now. But the plan, before the Beasts’ corruption and Link’s death, was to execute a finely coordinated strike. We would escort Link and the princess to a point near Ganon’s lair. We would call upon the Divine Beasts’ power, and combine their strength to weaken Ganon. Then Link would use the Master Sword to bring Ganon to heel- a lonely and dangerous task to be sure, but a critical one- and Zelda would call upon her ancestral power to seal him.”

“It seems foolproof,” Green says ruefully.

“It did,” Impa agrees solemnly. “But we relied on each phase to work properly. Things fell apart when we lost the Beasts.”

“But if we get them back,” Blue suggests.

“We would still be without the final Champion and his blade.”

“But if we didn’t need them?”

“A fool’s errand. This is not your burden to bear, though it is noble of you to offer. No- Blue, was it?- leave this to those with more experience. You are children still.”

“I don’t see anyone else volunteering,” Blue says irritably.

“Not yet, perhaps.”

“If not now then when? Our lives depend on the princess holding out, and she can only do that for so long. Who knows how long we have left? A year? Ten? Or maybe it’ll be a month, or a week, or tomorrow. Do you really want to stake your life and your people and your home on a hopeful assumption?”

Impa stares at Blue for a long moment, sizing her up.

“At least get us started,” Blue says, calmer now.

“If we can’t do it we’ll know, and we won’t pursue it,” Zelda says finally (and ignores Blue’s quiet cheer). “But Blue has a point, for once.”

“Hey-”

“And if it doesn’t work out then it won’t be for lack of trying.” Red shrugs. “Blue’s a little dumb sometimes-” He smiles affectionately at her- “But when she gets down to it she knows what she’s doing. And so do we. Mostly.” 

“This is a bad thing to have weighing on my conscience,” Impa says and sighs again. “Why this? Why something so… extreme?”

“Shadow told you what happens to him, didn’t he?”

“He did.” Her tone is neutral, but she frowns just a little.

“Well, this is a way to fix that.”

Impa’s gaze falls to the floor. “And you are all set on this?” Her jaw tightens. “All right,” She says finally, reluctantly. “I will do what I can to help. But we will take this in steps. If it becomes too much at any point I refuse to allow this folly to continue.”

Blue grins. “So what’s our first move?”

Impa is unamused. “Do not treat this as a game,” She says gravely. “This is life or death, as you said yourself. So first I will tell you this: you must be serious in everything that you do from now going forward. You are children still, but you must act as the wisest of your elders, or you will not see this quest through. Do not treat any part of this as anything less than a vital task with dire consequences.”

A little humbled by her sudden grave tone, all Blue says is “Okay.”

“I do not want to scare you.” Impa pauses. “Well, perhaps I do at that. But only enough to be certain that you grasp the enormity of the path you are choosing to walk. But I promise you that I and my people will help you however we can. The first step is to get a slate.”

“Like, a chunk of rock?”

Zelda nudges her. “Like what the princess was studying. What they were trying to use to control the guardians and access the ancient shrine she found.”

Green frowns. “But I thought there was only one.”

“There was,” Impa agrees. “But it may be that another can be created. I say  _ may _ \- it is not a guarantee. If it can be recreated, however, an old friend of mine in Akkala would be able to do it.”

“Robbie?”

Impa seems surprised. “You know of him?”

“We just came from his lab,” Red says (he sounds a little put out). “We talked to him for a while.”

“Well, it’s good that you are acquainted with him already.” Impa nods, taps her fingers against the floor. “I will give you this task and leave it at that for now. Go to Robbie and see whether he can make you a slate. If he can then we can discuss how to go forward.”

“And if he can’t?”

“Then this half-baked plan of ours will not work regardless.” Impa stands and stretches, a little stiffly. “But you should stay here at least for the night and rest. We will be eating well tonight, that I can promise. I am going to check on the preparations. You all may wander the village if you like, or rest.” As she walks by she murmurs something to Vio that the rest of them can’t make out; he nods but remains silent, and leaves with her.

After the door closes behind them, Red turns to Shadow. “Did something happen with him?”

Shadow shrugs. “Dunno. He’s been like that for a while. I didn’t do anything if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Vio being Vio,” Blue says dismissively. “How about you? Kind of a shame they didn’t-”

“Shut up,” Shadow says without much heat. “I’m fine. It went fine.”

“So you’re back in the gang? Or they’re still kicking you out but they won’t kill you?”

“I said it went fine. Impa had me talking for hours and then she told everyone and that was really it.”

They’re all quiet for a long minute. Finally Green says “So who  _ is  _ Impa, anyway? Why’s she so important?”

“She’s the elder. I told you that already.”

“Yeah, but why is it her we have to go through? Most of the other people here seem… uh, old enough to help.”

Shadow snorts. “What, something wrong with Impa? She raised me, y’know-”

“It isn’t that,” Green says hastily, “It’s just, well, she seems a little… what’s the word…”

“Abrasive?” Shadow can’t help a laugh. “Yeah, sometimes. You’ll warm up to her. And anyway, Impa is one of the oldest sheikah alive, and she worked with the princess and the Champions and even the Beasts for a while. Most of the oldest sheikah either died in the Calamity or stayed uninvolved. Almost everyone living here was already old when it happened or was too young to fight and stayed home to take care of the geezers.”

“And the rest?”

Shadow shrugs. “Scattered, just like hylians. Doing activist work or keeping an eye on the Yiga or the monsters or just living. Most visit from time to time but only the oldest live here.”

“How old is she?”

“Impa? I dunno. She won’t say and she’ll slap anyone rude enough to ask.”

“Best guess?”

“Eighty? Whenever she tells her stories from  _ before _ she says she was ‘in her early prime’. But don’t tell her I said that or she’ll kill me. And everyone’s pretty sure she isn’t going to die of old age anyway. She’s too stubborn.”

They’re invited to walk the village and explore it- Hylia knows they’d been curious when they first came in- but the midday sun is hot and Shadow isn’t in the mood to go anywhere, and they don’t know anyone else besides. They stay in Impa’s hall for the afternoon and wait (though what they’re waiting for they aren’t quite sure; Shadow just says they’re waiting). No one bothers them, except for one time near midafternoon, when a younger sheikah (Shadow identifies him as Idin) offers to bring them something to snack on.

It’s only when the room starts to dim and Idin comes back to light the sconces in the hall that they’re asked to go anywhere. Impa herself fetches them- fetches Shadow first, actually, but comes back to get them.

Shadow seems to be expecting it. He mutters a quiet nervous goodbye to them and then he leaves, without bothering to explain to the rest of them why.

“I’ll be back for you,” Impa tells them, after a long-suffering sigh and a glare at Shadow that he doesn’t look back to see. “We have to clear some things up with him first. It will not take long.”

She doesn’t elaborate, and they don’t ask her to, and she leaves too and closes the door gently behind her, and doesn’t come back for at least half an hour. When she does she seems almost apologetic, but she’s undeniably pleased with something.

“Come with me,” Is all she says, not bothering to do anything more than hold open the door for them.

The first thing they notice upon walking outside is the smell; inside the thick wood walls of the elder’s hall, none of it had reached them, but outside it’s warm and smoky and smells heavily of pumpkin and apple and herbs.

“I did not want you to see this before it was done,” She says by way of explanation, leading them through the rows of low tables and cookfires. None of them were there when they’d passed through earlier. “This is a sheikah feast proper, which I am sure you have never experienced before.”

“What…” Green can’t seem to find the words, and his empty stomach isn’t helping. 

“I should think that is obvious enough,” Impa says- a scold, almost, but playfully so. “There is much to celebrate tonight, and I will not let all of you go without at least sending you off. It would be bad luck.”

Impa serves as their guide only temporarily. She finds Shadow among the rows of tables and pots and then goes off on her own business, weaving with surprising agility through the crowd. There aren’t an awful lot of sheikah in the village, but there was never a lot of space to begin with, either, and it seems that the entire population has focused their efforts into this one little commons area. 

Anywhere else it would seem cramped and uncomfortable, and Green might try to stay on the outskirts of it and avoid the mass of people altogether. Somehow here it just seems friendly (though he doesn’t really know any of them). He ushers the rest of them towards a sort-of-empty spot at a table directly next to a brimming cookpot and sits, and the people there move to make room, and even though they’re elbow-to-elbow it doesn’t seem to bother anyone.

Shadow fights through the throng of people to sit with them, pushing between him and Red and hunkering down as though hiding. 

“Everyone’s tryin’ to talk to me,” He says, his voice hoarse. “I’ve been answering the same questions over and over the whole day.”

“What else did you expect?”

“I dunno, for them to understand that I’ve been answering the same questions over and over the whole day and to back off for a while. I haven’t even had a chance to eat.”

Green accepts the stack of empty bowls the woman next to him is passing over. “Eat now, then, and you can tell me what’s here, ‘cause I’m starving.”

Shadow shrugs uselessly. “Haven’t had the chance to look.”

“Well, what does something like this usually have?”

“Dunno, haven’t been here in twelve years.”

“You don’t have  _ any _ idea.”

“A lot of pumpkin.” He shrugs again. “Probably apple stuff too. I know there’s stew here, but I’m pretty sure it’s pumpkin, and I don’t think anyone likes pumpkin as much as they do.”

“If it’s food then I’m eating it,” Green says, simply, and gets up to fill his bowl. He sits back down not only with a full bowl but with a carved wooden tray laden with breads and pastries he can’t remember if he actually asked anyone for, and he pushes it towards the others and starts shoveling stew into his mouth like a starved man.

“‘S good,” He says to Shadow, who’s looking at him funny. “I like the pumpkin.”

Shadow shrugs and goes back to his own food (it’s surprisingly little, considering how much he usually eats, and he’s savoring it like it’s the last he’ll ever taste).

Zelda seems to pick up on it too. She nudges Shadow, gestures towards his bowl. “You okay?”

“Stressful day.” His tone is neither here nor there, and he doesn’t sound particularly interested in talking more about it. “Don’t let me ruin it for you, though. I’m fine.”

Green looks around, as if suddenly noticing something. “Do you know where Vio is?”

Shadow shakes his head. “Thought he was with Impa.”

“Maybe he is, I just don’t see him.”

“He’s probably hanging around somewhere less crowded. He… hasn’t been here in a while.”

Green’s read a lot about the sheikah- mostly historical texts, ones from centuries past- and everything he’s read seems to depict them as a very serious people, strict and disciplined  and none too amicable. His mother had cautioned him against believing all of that, but it’d sort of stuck all the same, he’d heard it so often. 

Looking around, they certainly don’t seem very strict or serious. Everyone’s talking and laughing and passing trays of food around, some breaking bread and pastries to share when they’ve eaten too much already. Everyone who passes by takes a moment to stop and greet them, and some even sit beside them to ask about their travels (and some get nosy and ask what they were talking to Impa about). Green wonders at it. It’s rare to find such easy camaraderie among such a large group of people, times being what they are, and he can’t imagine something like this taking place back in the sparse Hyrule Field settlements. It’s loud and hot and crammed in the village commons and somehow the atmosphere is nothing less than friendly.

That’s why he picks up on the change so quickly.

It’s abrupt and it’s subtle. For a brief moment it seems normal again, like maybe he’s misinterpreted something, like maybe it was just a little hiccup, like a broken bowl or a spilled tray. But the talking quiets to a murmur rolling through them, and the ones who have been sitting stand up, and their attention seems to center on a point a few tables away. Green wants to ask what’s going on, if this is something planned, but he gets the feeling that whatever’s going on is important (maybe a ritual? He isn’t the most well-versed in their tradition, after all-)

Then it seems that everyone’s on full alert, and he’s on his feet as their hands go to their bows and daggers and spears and whatever else is within reach. He looks over to ask something and Shadow is leaving, shoving past people to get _ somewhere _ , and he turns to Blue and Zelda and they look just as confused as he feels. 

“Maybe if we find Vio we can ask-”

A second of organized chaos as the sheikah assemble themselves, and all hell breaks loose.

He scrambles for his sword, and with so many people pushing past him it takes a second (too long) for him to get it out of its scabbard, and Blue’s without her spear altogether so she takes a handful of the knives from the table and shoves extras through her belt. Zelda’s got a bow from somewhere, he assumes someone gave it to her for whatever the hell is happening, and Red’s got his sword too, but none of them know what to do.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know!”

Shadow comes back then, unintentionally- it seems like he’s trying to get somewhere else but he isn’t paying attention and backs into Zelda and almost trips, and when he gets his footing back he starts shoving them along.

Blue shoves back. “ _ What _ is-”

Someone laughs, not far away- not a good laugh, a malicious one, one that chills his blood- and Shadow goes pale.

“Yiga,” He says, and huffs out a panicked breath and tries to push them towards the nearest house.

Blue looks incredulous. “Yiga?!”

“Get  _ inside _ ,” He tells her, and goes pushing through the crowd.

“Like  _ hell _ I will,” She shouts, and goes after him, and the rest of them have only a split second of hesitation before they follow the two of them.

Shadow’s looking for something- some _ one _ \- and he finds them when they run headlong into what seems to be the center of the fray. 

The sheikah are holding their own, for now, the ones with spears keeping them at a distance from those unable to fight, while the archers take potshots from on top of houses and bridges and even trees. At a glance the situation doesn’t seem so dire: the Yiga are outnumbered several to one. But the Yiga have magic, and they’re able to bowl down even the most seasoned sheikah warriors, and Green finally understands just why Shadow’s so freaked out about it.

He wants to help, wants to charge in to keep them away from the old and ill, but he sees that he’d be blown aside like a keese in a hurricane. He’s nowhere near as experienced as the fighters holding the line and even they’re struggling, and he thinks that if anything he’d only be a liability.

“Stay  _ here _ ,” Shadow tells them fiercely, and then he goes rushing towards the Yiga, and Green tries to pull him back or shout after him or just stop him  _ somehow _ , but it’s too late, Shadow’s too far and he feels frozen in place. For a moment it seems that another of the sheikah will hold him back, but Shadow ducks under her arm and pushes aside one of the front-line fighters and blasts one of the Yiga directly in the chest with a burst of something Green can’t identify (he assumes magic, but he’s never  _ seen  _ something like that before).

The Yiga crumples, struggles to get back up but can’t seem to, like they’re being restrained by something, and one of the sheikah puts a spearhead through his stomach and that’s the end of them.

Another of the Yiga’s conjured something that calls to mind a marinette with poorly trimmed strings: the figure is splotched black and crimson and only vaguely resembles a person, and it’s all sharp angles and teeth and claws, and it’s advancing upon the front line with lurching, halting steps. It seems easy enough to swat aside but it turns out to be almost impossible- when they injure it it only reforms, like a cloud blown apart by wind, but the damage the thing inflicts is real and not so easily undone, and it allows the Yiga to start an attack of their own.

Shadow stops it the second before its claws tear into the lead spearman, steels himself and focuses and reaches out to the Malice in its creator and wrests control from them. The Malice in the Yiga rebels against this new touch and the marionette slumps like its strings have been cut, collapses into itself until it’s little more than a puddle on the ground.

The Yiga reels as if punched, staggers back and starts looking around. They know- of course they know- and they’re trying to find Shadow but they don’t seem to see him, not until he comes rushing out at them with black-red magic curling around his palms and dripping from his fingers, and this time it isn’t so easy because he doesn’t have the element of surprise anymore. He feels the Yiga try to pull the Malice from him but they don’t succeed, of course they don’t, he’s got a better handle on it by now than almost anyone else, they only took up the magic but he  _ grew _ with it- and frustrated by their failure, the Yiga sneers and abandons their magic and pulls a sickle from their belt. They lunge at Shadow and Shadow doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, and the Yiga goes for the kill, shoves the sickle into a cloud of Malice he’s summoned and the blade melts. It isn’t hot and the blade doesn’t glow; it just melts, and every inch of the metal that comes in contact with the Malice is left soft and drooping, and half the sickle falls useless to the ground. Shadow tramples it flat as he shoves a spike of magic into the Yiga’s chest.

The rest of the Yiga- only a handful, but a dangerous handful- have given up on hunting the sheikah, now, with two of their number killed, and it’s probably Shadow that they care about anyway, and they know exactly where he is and they come for him.

By then he’s ready for them, and they know that, and they fan out around him in a loose circle (like sharks smelling blood) and Shadow doesn’t care for that shit at all, so he snares one of them in barbed bonds of Malice and bludgeons another with a flat blast to the head and reverses the dagger the last throws at him and kills them with their own blade.

Four are dead and there’s just the one left, struggling against the thorns that hold him in place, but Shadow’s magic is stronger and they both know it and Shadow is  _ angry _ to boot.

The bonds twist and stretch and throw the Yiga to the ground in front of Shadow, and new ones spring into existence and wrench their arms behind their back (Shadow thinks he hears something pop) and tie their ankles together and wind around their neck and pull them flat against the ground, back to the dirt.

Shadow kicks the mask off. He recognizes this face, vaguely, and he loathes it.

“Why are you here?” Shadow demands, voice hoarse with strain and barely concealed terror.

In too much pain for a quip or even a twisted smile, the Yiga only gazes fiercely at him and spits blood (they mean for it to land on Shadow, but they’re too weak, and it ends up back on their face). The bonds tighten and the barbs bite deeper into their skin.

“I asked you a fuckin’ question,” Shadow snarls at him. A fresh splotch of blood soaks through their collar.

“You aren’t safe,” The Yiga spits. They sound choked. “You never will be.”

“Answer. The  _ question _ .”

“Run all you want, Jati. You can’t hide. Isn’t this-” They cough- “Proof enough?”

Disgusted (and privately, perturbed), Shadow walks away, tightens the bonds and doesn’t bother to stick around to make sure the job is done. 

He doesn’t know where to walk, doesn’t know who to go to; he’s afraid to look back and see people as afraid of him as they were of the Yiga, doesn’t want to see anyone as ashamed as he suddenly feels, and though he knows they could use help cleaning up and seeing to the wounded he doesn’t know if they’re going to want  _ his _ help. So he hangs his head and keeps his eyes on the ground and walks to someplace clear of loose dirt and blood and sits down with his head in his hands. He doesn’t know what he expects to happen but he certainly doesn’t expect comfort, not when there’s work to be done, but hardly a minute passes and then he feels someone’s arms around him and he looks up and it’s Koya (he probably only remembers right now because half of them felt like they had to reintroduce themselves to him after the Announcement).

“Are you okay?” She asks. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Which one are you answering?”

He half-laughs at that. The adrenaline is starting to wear off and he feels like he might faint. “‘M fine.”

Koya sits down and keeps an arm across his shoulders and looks him in the eyes. “Thank you,” She says, and squeezes his arm when he makes a face. “For protecting us. I know what you’re probably thinking and everyone is grateful. Don’t worry about it. You did well.”

He shrugs. “It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t-”

“It’s worth it,” She insists. “Everyone’s too happy to know you’re all right to be mad at you for this. It isn’t your fault.”

He can feel himself starting to shake- he’s worn out and scared and anxious and the Yiga’s parting words aren’t helping- and he tries to pull away before she can notice but he’s sure it’s too late for that by the way she helps him to his feet.

“We’ll take care of it from here,” She tells him. “You go find your friends and get some rest, okay?”

“I can help-”

“I know you  _ can _ . You don’t have to. There are only a few injured. Most of it’s just overturned tables and spilled soup. Go get your little group together and bring them to the inn and get some sleep. You’ve done your part.”

He’s grateful for that, grateful to get out of the crowd and away from where he’s sure people are staring at him, and maybe he’ll feel a little better with people he’s closer to, people he’s spent more time with.

He gets back to the inn and Blue-  _ Blue _ \- is the one to approach him first, and she grins and claps him on the shoulder a lot harder than she needs to, and Zelda looks apologetic and starts to say something but Blue cuts her off.

“That was sick,” She says, and Shadow does have to admit that yes, it probably was to them, but to him it’s nothing special anymore, and he’s too scared now to admire his own skill.

“Leave him alone,” Zelda tells her, sounding exasperated, and pushes her towards her bed. “I doubt he’s in the mood to deal with you right now.”

“It’s fine,” Shadow says, only half lying. 

“I don’t want her bothering you.” She goes to her own bed and starts dealing with her belongings, gives Shadow his distance, but her attention remains on him. “You’re okay?”

“Fine.”

“Are you just saying that?”

“No. I’m good. Not hurt or anything.”

“Well, that isn’t exactly what I meant, but I won’t pry.” She lays out the blanket over her bed, fixes the pillows. “But I will say- seeing what you’re capable of, I’m a lot more confident that we can do this.”

 

They’re invited to stay another day, to rest after last night’s shock and finish the meal properly, but they refuse: they all want this traveling to be over as soon as possible, and Shadow’s too anxious to stay anyway (he keeps insisting that they’re going to come back, which seems unlikely given their losses). 

Impa sends them off herself, accompanies them through the north pass and all the way out into the plains, complaining all the while about how her attendants try to keep on her heels (“if they didn’t get me last night they will  _ not _ get me now! Let me see these children off in peace!”).

She looks out over the field almost longingly. “I wish that I were able to accompany you, but after what has happened I think it is best that I stay here.”

“And you’re a little too old,” Shadow says, smiles at Impa and ducks too slow to avoid Impa’s flat-handed slap to the back of his head.

“You are too comfortable with me,” She says, but she’s smiling. “Give my regards to Robbie when you arrive. It has been too long since I have seen him. And come back here when you have your answer, slate or no slate. I would get to know the rest of you better before you fall blindly upon your swords.”

“Optimistic,” Shadow says and gets another slap. “All  _ right _ , stop  _ hitting _ me, I’ll shut up!”

Impa ignores him. “Be on your guard,” She tells them- as if any of them need telling. “I am confident now that you are well-protected, but skill does not always hold up under misfortune. Be cautious in your travels.”

She bids them farewell individually, kisses Shadow and Vio both on the forehead (it’s as sincere as it is mocking) and insists upon hugging each of the rest of them, and it’s surprising how much strength is in those wrinkled arms. “You all come back in one piece, am I understood?”

Shadow rolls his eyes. “This is just, like, a dinner run-”

“No more of your nonsense, child, or I will take you by the collar and keep you here and let your friends have their fun themselves.”

As much as she teases them- and it seems like she’s stalling, holding onto every moment she can keep them there- her concern and her care are real, and, reluctantly, she lets them go, watches them travel down the slope together. She doesn’t like this plan, isn’t convinced of its potential, and she’d stop it in its tracks if she could. 

But she’s seen their kind before, and they aren’t the kind to be argued against, so she only watches them go, and returns the wave they give her at the foot of the slope.


	11. visitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe it's been a while since i last updated.... maybe it's been so long i had to reread the whole thing to remember what was going on....... but that isn't important because here's the next chapter!! nearly 15k words to make up for my absence!

Robbie receives them (three weeks after their departure from Kakariko) warmly, though he seems surprised that they’ve returned so soon. (Shadow wonders whether Robbie’s gotten the news from Kakariko yet.)

“And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” He asks, holding the door open to let the six of them trudge in, wet and shivering from the morning mist still clinging to them. “A bit early to be knocking on people’s doors, don’t you think?”

“Impa sent us with a request.” Blue is too cold and too deprived of good comfortable sleep to be any more tactful. 

Robbie doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it. He goes to the back, lights a woodfire stove and sets a kettle of tea to steep. “Has she now?” 

“Well, it’s not a sure thing,” Zelda says. “I guess it depends on your answer.”

Back still to them, Robbie waves a hand almost dismissively. “Well, don’t keep me waiting,” He says, “What is it?”

“The sheikah slate that the hylian Champion had,” Green tells him, “You know about that, don’t you?”

“Know about it? I helped study it, dear boy, of  _ course _ I know about it, and to be frank Impa should know better than to ask me something as obvious as that!”

“It isn’t just asking about it, though- we, or, well, she said-” Green pauses and restarts. “We need one of those,” He says, “And Impa told us that if anyone could make it then it would be you.”

Robbie nods, scratches his chin thoughtfully. “She’s probably right,” He agrees pleasantly- not boastful, not bragging, in the same matter-of-fact tone he might use to tell them that the sky is blue. “Lucky for you, I’ve been working on something that might be able to bang one together- only just finished yesterday, actually, but there are still some bugs to work out.” He’s quiet for a moment, staring at the kettle, thinking, and then he shrugs. “Well, I was going to wait until it was completely fixed up, but I suppose it can’t hurt to introduce her now.” He puts the teaspoon down on the ramshackle wooden countertop and goes to a lump covered with a length of canvas resting against the side wall. With some effort he heaves it upright and shoves it to the center of the room for them to behold (it makes a horrible scraping creaking sound as it goes) and stands it up there and, without introduction or fanfare, pulls the tarp down.

The thing is squat and round and made of dark metal, with a stout rod topping its head and rings like ears on either side, and on its front are slitted circles that look like eyes and a jagged line that resembles a mouth with a bad underbite, and none of them understand what it is.

Robbie stands there, smile fixed on his face, looking between them clearly hoping for some kind of exclamation or praise, and seems crestfallen when he gets none.

Red, politely, breaks the news. “I don’t know what that is,” He tells Robbie, as apologetically as he can without sounding patronizing.

Robbie stands up straighter and tugs on the lapels of his coat and clears his throat. “Well, allow me the pleasure of explaining it to you, then. I’ve built myself an oven to recreate some of the ancient technology our ancestors put together, and if it works as I’ve designed it to, it will be able to create weapons and armor unparalleled by tools of human make. You all know already that I’ve been studying relics left to us by past generations and now my research is coming to fruition here in this- well, as of now I call it an ancient oven, but something as valuable as this deserves a better name.” He turns away from them and goes back to his kettle, drops in more tea leaves and stirs it. “Of course, I was only ever able to study the weaponry and armor- the Champion’s slate was the only one of its kind I ever saw, so I never had the opportunity to take it apart like I wanted to. It might take some trial and error for me to get it right.”

Green’s looking at the oven with a mix of interest and apprehension. “That’s not a problem at all,” He says, “Considering it’d be a miracle to have it done in the first place.”

“And not only that,” Robbie adds, “You will, of course, need to pitch in. You can’t expect me to put a slate together out of thin air.”

“‘Course not,” Blue agrees, enthusiastically. “What do we have to do?”

“I need parts. Guardian parts, specifically, the cleanest and most intact you can find. As many as you can get me. I know there are some in the wetlands by the ruins of the citadel.”

“You have guardians outside,” Vio says (surprising all of them- it’s about the most he’s spoken since they left Kakariko).

“I’m aware, but they’re all overgrown with moss and weeds and all the rain and the cold has rusted them to rot. They aren’t worth much anymore except as scrap metal.”

“There is an untouched one out front,” Vio reminds him, sounding not quite  _ irritable  _ but something like it.

“I have plans for that one. I don’t have to do this at all, you know, if this is such a burden-”

“He’s just being difficult,” Blue says, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll get what you need, you just focus on getting your oven ready or whatever.”

Vio decidedly doesn’t appreciate the comment, and in fact almost flat-out refuses to leave the lab.

“This is ridiculous,” Blue says, exasperated, as Vio ignores her and sits on the rickety wooden porch. “Vio, you’ve acted stupid before, but this is, like, this takes the cake.”

“I do not care,” He says steadfastly. “I am not doing this.”

“You can’t just make  _ everyone else _ do  _ all _ the work and then expect to reap the rewards-”

“That is not what it is,” Vio snaps. 

“Then what  _ is _ it?”

Vio doesn’t meet her eyes. “None of your business.”

“You don’t get to just refuse to help and then not even say why you’re being a little bitch about it!”

“I  _ get _ to do whatever I want to do,” He says icily, “And  _ you _ do  _ not _ get to demand any answers from me.”

“Then go home for all the good you’re doing us!” She’s thoroughly frustrated with him and not in the mood to deal with any semantics and if she could she’d grab him by the collar and drag him all the way to the wetlands. “You’re no use here!”

Green, gently and trying to act as non-inflammatory as possible, ushers Blue away so she doesn’t work herself into a chronic bad mood.

“Vio,” Green tries, and Vio is just as unreceptive. “Look, Blue’s got a point, you can’t just choose to tap out whenever you want and join back in whenever you want. At least come with us to help bring the parts back, y’know, we could use the saddlebags. But you’re just saying no and not telling anyone why and that isn’t really fair.”

“I could make you come,” Shadow chimes in, helpfully, “With magic ‘n all. You wouldn’t have a choice.”

“I’m with Shadow,” Blue says, “That sounds like a good idea. You can either come by choice or he can make you and honestly at this point making you is starting to sound really great-”

Zelda has to push Blue away before she teams up with Shadow and makes things even worse, and Green sighs and gets back up and takes Vio’s arm and tries to pull him to his feet.

“All of us just want to get this over with,” He says, “Please just tag along and make this easy. I don’t want to have to deal with Blue’s complaining the whole way.”

Vio does get up, but he doesn’t say anything to any of them, just sets his mouth in a hard line and turns and walks away.

Blue’s about to get  _ really _ mad when Vio comes back, leading his horse by the reins, and she tries for a passing-friendly  remark to him (something’s off, she knows him well enough to know that, it isn’t just a mood). He doesn’t meet her eyes, only swings into the saddle and waits for them to start walking. 

Every step draws them closer to the wetlands and it seems that every step makes Vio withdraw more, and none of them have a clue how his mood started. Shadow has an idea when, though, and when they’re almost there- not more than a day’s walk, if they keep a decent pace- he pulls Vio aside at the evening fire.

“What’s been going on with you?” He asks. Vio doesn’t seem to want to make eye contact. “Look,” He says, quieter, “You started acting like this in Kakariko. It’s worse now. What is it?”

“Nothing.” Vio doesn’t seem to be making an effort to make the lie convincing.

“I’m not that stupid. I know  _ when _ you started acting like this, just not  _ why _ .”

“Think a little harder. Maybe you will connect the dots.”

He says nothing else that night, no matter how hard Shadow tries. 

They get to the wetlands about a week after leaving the lab, in late afternoon as the sun is halfway through its descent. 

Blue stands at the slope that leads down into the stand of trees. “Here’s our first stop,” She says all too cheerfully. 

“Want to rest a minute before we start?” Green is rubbing at his calves. “Those hills are terrible.”

“Weak,” Blue says without hesitation, “We could do this right now and be done before sunset. Why take the risk, right?”

“Oh,  _ now _ you care about the risk.” Red rolls his eyes. “Risk didn’t seem important to you on the way here the first time- you were practically  _ asking _ for it to walk over here and shoot you.”

“Crawlers can’t touch me,” She insists proudly. “You know how many I’ve taken out on my beach? Seven.”

Zelda raises an eyebrow. “You said they were half-decayed-”

“ _ No _ I did not, and even if I did you can’t prove it. I took out seven all by myself and I did all seven at the same time, too, ‘cause that’s just how good I am.”

“Okay,  _ maybe _ seven’s believable if you sort of squint, but at the same time? You’re asking to be laughed at.”

“And you’re asking to be punched.”

“Well, there are only supposed to be two here,” Red says. “That’s what Robbie said, and we saw only the one last time. Maybe one’s broken down since then.”

“Doubt it.” Shadow snorts. “Those things’ll run ‘til the sun blows out.”

“I’ve seen a lot of decayed ones,” Blue points out. “Just sittin’ on the beach.”

“I’ve seen frozen ones,” Zelda adds. “They’d get a little wet and the water would freeze them up and they’d sit there and break down. Half of them never worked and the other half were so stuck up with ice that all I had to do was walk up behind them, reach around, and smash their eye in.”

“Well, those’re less than ideal environments,” Shadow says, a little defensively. “The saltwater and sand ruins the beach ones and of course they don’t work with ice everywhere.”

“From the way you’re defending ‘em it almost sounds like you made ‘em or something. You a guardian hugger?”

“Shut up, Blue, I’m just trying to  _ help _ , and considering you’re the one who shoved us headfirst into this whole mess-”

“Okay,” Red says almost patronizingly, “Let’s put this fight aside for later, ‘cause, y’know, we’ve got stuff to do, as Blue pointed out.”

Green is crouching low to the ground with his heels pressed flat against the dirt, trying to stretch the ache out of his legs. “Can’t we wait another minute? My legs are killing me.”

“Tough.”

“You know what’s gonna be  _ tough _ is when you’re down one member of the team ‘cause you’re slave-driving him.”

“Oh, our self-appointed  _ leader _ is gonna tap out? And so early in, too-”

“One of these days you’re gonna be angry and sore all over and I’m gonna make you work just the same. And when you start complaining about it I’m just gonna remind you of this.”

“That’s hardly the same thing, your little legs are hurting ‘cause you walked a little too far-”

“Up hills!”

“Same as the rest of us, and you don’t hear Red or Zelda or me crying about it!”

“I could sit for a little,” Red says, sympathetically, and Blue points a warning finger at him.

“I’m not moving,” Green says and sits down, “Not until I’ve had my rest. I don’t like your tone.”

Blue groans and appeals to Zelda. “You’ll come, won’t you?”

“I think it’s best that we wait until everyone is ready.”

Helplessly she turns to Shadow.

“I’m just sayin’ no to spite you,” Shadow says with a nasty smile.

“You’re all horrible and every single one of you is on my personal shit list.” But she does sit down, next to Vio, and slings a friendly arm across his shoulders and sighs when he flinches (he hadn’t been aware she’d even been there until she’d touched him).

“Okay, kid,” She says, and he’s too out of it to argue that he’s older than she is. “What’s goin’ on with you?”

Vio shakes his head. 

“Hey, I’m serious for once, okay? You can call me an idiot all you want but I know when something’s up, and clearly it’s something bad.”

“I said I did not want to come. The reason is not your business.”

“Well, see, the thing is- it sort of is our business, ‘cause if it’s affecting you then it’s affecting us, or it will. No one’s joking right now and if Shadow tries to act cute I’ll personally sock him for you. But this is important.”

Vio’s jaw tightens, and he stares at the ground for a long minute, and Blue thinks that for all the times that she’s been able to get the truth out of him before, he’s not going to budge this time. But he sighs, leans back against his bag and folds his arms against his chest.

“This is personal,” He says, his voice quiet. “I expect it will stay that way.”

“Of course.”

She’s sure he knows that the rest of them are listening- pretending to be busy, but quietly busy- but he doesn’t seem to care, maybe thinks it’s easier if he just pretends and lets them eavesdrop so he doesn’t have to tell it directly to all of them.

He doesn’t seem to know how to begin (something that she knows frustrates him) and he doesn’t say anything for a while. Finally he grasps the strap of the bag he’s laying on like a lifeline, looks down again. “It is… trauma,” He says, bitterly, like he hates the very taste of the word in his mouth. “The guardians. When I was much younger. One… in the fields, past the ruins of Castle Town, my father and I were traveling, and…” He swallows, hard. “One caught us off-guard, somehow. He was already injured. You can put two and two together.”

Blue doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know if there’s anything she really can. “That how you got that scar?” She asks, smiles a little, trying for a lighter tone. He doesn’t appreciate it, clearly, and doesn’t respond.

“Okay, bad taste, I’m sorry,” She says, as contritely as she can without sounding fake. She pulls him into a hug (a little awkwardly) before he can try to push her away and pushes all his hair forward into his face, which he hates, but she hears him make that weird noise he makes when he’s sort of amused, and she considers that a small victory and lets him go. “I’ll let you off the hook on this one,” She says, as if she has any real say on the matter.

He shrugs. “No,” He says after a minute. “I… should probably go with you.”

“Look, just this once I’m giving you an excuse to sit back, so don’t worry about it.”

Vio sighs. “Loath as I am to admit it,” He says, with just the barest hint of a smile, “You were right, kind of. It is going to affect all of us one way or the other. I should at least try to… to get over this while it is still an option and not life-or-death.”

“If you say so,” She says, and inwardly feels a sort of pride for him, even if most of the time he could use a good push off his high horse (literally and figuratively). “But hey, you can duck out if you need, and good ol’ Blue will cover you when you’re running scared-”

Vio pushes her so hard she falls over into the grass (she later blames this on not having expected it). “I appreciate the sentiment,” He says flatly, but there’s a smile in his voice. 

The rest of them go back to their business, tending to their weapons and resorting their packs, and none of them seem ready to break the atmosphere and usher them on, maybe out of respect to Vio or maybe out of their own apprehension. Blue (fortunately?) doesn’t have the same reservations.

“If we’re doing this let’s do it,” She says, rolls to the side to get her spear and gets to her feet. “Or Robbie’s gonna die of old age before we get back to him.”

Vio isn’t looking at them, too busy hitching his pack to Moka’s saddle, but he can feel the others’ eyes on him.

“You’ll be okay?” Green asks, finally. 

“It is fine.”

“You sure?”

“I am fine, Green.” 

Vio considers hitching Moka somewhere, to keep her safe, or maybe not hitching her but just bidding her to stay (just in case, he thinks, and tries not to give any thought to the implication there), but it seems like a better idea to have her along- in case someone’s hurt and can’t walk, or in case he freezes, Hylia forbid- but he tries not to think about that as he gets into the saddle.

Moka doesn’t seem aware of any danger as they start their walk into the little marsh, or at least she isn’t affected by it. She walks into the loam without hesitating, without spooking, and he wishes he could say the same for himself. They haven’t even caught sight of the guardian(s?) yet and he’s holding Moka’s reins so tight his hands hurt and he feels like the air is getting thicker, harder to breathe, and-

He takes the reins, loosens them, winds them around the saddle horn so they won’t get caught in the weeds or the branches or his bowstring, and he takes his feet out of the stirrups, and slowly he takes out his bow, adjusts the quiver on his hip and nocks an arrow. He thinks that he can hear the guardian now (maybe it’s only his imagination) and he takes a deep breath and holds it.

“It’s just up there,” Green says, “Everyone ready?”

He feels something on his leg- anxious as he is, he may or may not jump a little- and he looks down and Blue’s hand is there. She grins at him and mouths ‘you got this’. 

And they walk forward, fanning out among the trees, hoping to confuse its targeting systems, and Vio lags a little, torn between going with them and staying back after all, but Moka decides for him and follows Green.

Blue shouts something none of them understand (it probably wasn’t meant to be understood anyway) and runs at the guardian, holding her spear close to its head, and as it focuses on her and tries to crawl back, Zelda and Red hedge it in like they’re herding cattle, and Green goes for a leg, trying to hack it off. It only dents the lobstered metal and chips the blade of his sword, and he curses and backs off as the head spins to face him, lens zeroing in on him. 

“Don’t bother with the legs!”

“But if we immobilize it-” Green has to pause as he’s almost run down by the stalker, its clawed feet (?) missing his body by mere inches as it breaks away from their circle.

“The metal’s too hard,” Blue snaps, desperately trying to keep away from the guardian’s tracer beam, “It won’t do anything!”

“But it’s running-”

“And it’ll keep running ‘til you hack all its legs off! It’ll take too long!”

“Just go for the gears!” Shadow is further back than the rest of them, trying to get its attention and failing. “My magic won’t do anything to it, but-”

Blue would go knock his lights out if she weren't so preoccupied. “And why the fuck  _ not _ ?”

“It’s half made of Malice at this point, throwing  _ more _ at it won’t hurt it!”

“And you couldn’t tell us that  _ before _ ?!” The thin red tracer beam is flickering from Blue to Green to Zelda to Blue again, and it seems it can’t decide who to shoot first- they’re all equally threatening and equally useless against it- and as soon as it turns its head away she rushes at it, jams her spear into one of its bottom vents, hoping to stop its gears and keep it from just walking out of their attack range. Immediately it drops that half of its body and shoves itself down into the ground, and the impact nearly breaks her ankle except that she hits a softer patch of dirt and sinks in.

Her idea works- the spear sticks, the head lodged in between two of the larger gears, and suddenly the two legs nearest the vent won’t move. The guardian pauses for a moment, head whirling, and then slowly, deliberately, its blueglass eye settles on her and its lens narrows, and there’s something disturbingly  _ alive _ about it.

She’s trying to pry her spear out without breaking it and the eye glows red and she can feel the heat of its beam on her face, right in the center of her forehead, and even with her feet braced against its body she can’t seem to get the spear out and everyone’s yelling at her to  _ move _ , get out of there, and its eye flashes and a white-hot corona surrounds the glass and she’s trying to get free, too late, and then she hears something shatter and she looks up and there’s an arrow buried so deep in its eye that all she can see is the dappled brown duck-feather fletching.

It hums for a moment more and then the heat fades and it just falls, groaning, static crackling between its joints, and she looks back and sees Vio on his horse, bow in hand and breathing hard, looking at the dying machine with an expression caught between triumph and utter panic.

She wants to get up and pull him off his stupid horse and hug him so hard he can’t breathe, but when she tries she finds that half her leg is pinned under the guardian and it’s too heavy to push up from where she’s sitting.

“Hey,” She shouts, and her voice comes out rough, “You guys gonna stand around or are you gonna get this oversized pot off me?”

Zelda is the first to get to her, and then Red, and between the two of them they lift the thing up enough for her to get her leg out, and she can already feel a nasty bruise blooming there as she tries to get up.

“Sit,” Red says, trying to push her down, “We should make sure it isn’t broken or anything-”

“Oh, screw off,” She says affectionately and ignores Zelda’s glare, and gets up anyway and walks (limps) over to Vio. “Get down here,” She says, and Vio does, still too dazed to question it, and she claps him on the shoulder and then hugs him as tight as she can without choking him. “Hey,” She says, and makes him look at her, “I owe you one.” And then after a second adds “But don't get any ideas.”

He laughs at that, and then finally he seems to ease up, and she grins, the terror of just two minutes ago forgotten, and pushes him a step towards the guardian. “C’mon,” She says, “Let’s go rip that bastard apart.”

She kicks one of the legs as she walks by it to get to her broken spear. “Fucker ate my favorite spear,” She mutters, bends to pick up the splintered remains of the haft and snorts and throws it at the guardian. “Useless. Now I don’t have a weapon.”

“You’ve got your hands,” Shadow suggests helpfully.

“Oh, yeah, I’ll just punch one of these metal pieces of shit in the eye,” She sneers, “Real nice, break my fuckin’ knuckles too, and then I can sit back and watch and be useless the rest of the time.”

“Not much different from what you’ve been doing so far-”

“Oh,  _ you _ wanna talk about being useless? The cocky bitch who hasn’t helped at all this whole damn time?”

“I haven’t  _ helped _ ? I didn’t  _ help _ when I saved your ass from the Yiga?”

“Your fault they were there in the first place! That isn’t helping, it’s cleaning up your own mistake! Tell you what- you wanna be helpful, fix my spear!”

“Why should I, asshole?”

“Please,” Red says to Shadow, “Please just do it.”

“I’m not doing anything ‘cause I’m not  _ helpful _ , apparently-”

Zelda grabs Shadow by the back of the neck, and Shadow goes stock-still like a cat being scruffed. “Just do it,” She says in her best sharp-sweet voice, and then he goes meekly enough and takes the destroyed haft and shoves it at Blue and tells her to hold it together, and a minute later the wood is smooth and whole again in her hands.

“The spearhead?”

“Get it for me and I'll put it on.” He sounds like he’d like to add something to that sentence, but one look at Zelda puts him off it.

“It’s buried in the fuckin’ thing.”

“We’ll get it out,” Red says, “We’ve got to get the parts out anyway.”

Green frowns. “Did Robbie even say what he wanted us to get?”

“Sort of. Not really. So we’re just gonna guess.”

Red expects Vio to stay back and let them do it- not that any of them would mind, he’s sure, after what they’d heard- but Vio looks Moka over and then comes and kneels beside them and helps them flip the guardian over like a turtle in its shell. It’s no easy task, but the soil has some give to it and that helps just a little, and between the six of them they manage to heave it onto its side. Vio regards it with disgust, and he hesitates a moment more and then he walks forward and pries Blue’s spearhead out from between two bent-up gears, and he throws it at Shadow (who only barely catches it) and steps back again.

“So,” Green says after a minute. “How are we supposed to get these things out?”

“Pull ‘em,” Blue says with simple certainty and approaches one of the warped gears and yanks it.

“You’ve already ruined two,” Zelda says, and pulls her back by her shoulders. “I think we need to try a more delicate approach.”

“I ruined ‘em with my spear, not with my hands. Pulling will work.”

“It may  _ work _ , but I imagine that Robbie needs parts in the best condition possible, or he could have pulled them from his scrap pile.” Zelda looks the underside of the guardian over. “They’re fit together tightly, though. I’m not sure how we’re going to do this.”

Blue makes a face and turns to Shadow. “Any ideas, Magic Man?”

“ _ Magic Man _ is busy fixing  _ your  _ spear that you were too stupid to keep intact.”

“If we pull them from the outside,” Vio suggests, points to a (mostly) untethered gear at the edge of the guardian’s internal circuitry, “It may be we can strip the outside first and work our way in.”

“And if we can’t?”

“Use force, I suppose.”

Even the outer ring of gears is wound into the wiring tightly, and it takes Blue and Zelda together to pull one of the gears out, a small delicate one with blue circuitry inlaid like lace. It’s heavy, certainly, but not as heavy as they’d expected it to be, and Blue tosses it over to Vio, who (after nearly fumbling it) looks it over, scowling. 

“Souvenir?” Blue asks, grinning.

“I would rather not,” Vio says, and calls his horse over and drops the gear into the empty saddlebag.

“They won’t be too heavy for her?”

“Not if we do not put in an entire guardian’s worth of parts.”

They cherry-pick parts from the guardian, prying apart the interlocked machinery and taking only the most pristine, leaving the dented and scratched and warped parts for some other scavenger.

Vio stands there for a little while, watches them work and deposits the usable pieces into the saddlebags when they manage to get them out. When they’ve picked it over thoroughly, taken every useful gear and screw and shaft in the thing (or at least they think so- none of them are particularly well-versed in machinery) they take a break to eat and rest and talk.

Zelda weighs one of the saddlebags in her hand. “Do we need more than this? Especially if he’s only supposed to be making one little thing?”

“Well, problem is, we don’t really know  _ what _ we’re supposed to be getting. Maybe all of this stuff is wrong and we’re gonna have to come back.”

“We’ve got so much already, though, and it’s all we’ve seen. If all of this is wrong then I’ve got no idea what’s supposed to be right.”

“There’s another guardian here in the wetlands,” Red points out. “Maybe we should at least go deal with that one and then we can decide from there.” He nudges Vio. “That okay with you?”

“Fine,” Vio says (only a little bit uneasily) and goes back to his food.

“It’ll be easier this time anyway, now that we know what to expect. Stay away from the legs and just don’t act like Blue.”

“Or Vio can just shoot it and save us the trouble.”

“I cannot shoot it while it is scanning. It would turn its head before the arrow hit. I would need-”

“No way in hell, man, I’m not being bait for one of those fuckers.”

“You seemed very sure of yourself not so long ago.”

“Well, now I’m sure that I don’t have to put myself in danger when you can just take the thing out from fifty feet out-”

“Further than that, certainly, but I would need it to keep still, which it will not if it is not engaged.”

“Well then why don’t  _ you _ -” She catches herself and stops short there, fumbles to save it and says “You find someone else to do it?”

“Because you seem a likely enough candidate.”

“How about Shadow? He can just poof out anytime he wants anyway, that’s what he  _ says _ , so we’ve got the least risk in him, yeah?”

“Won’t work,” Shadow says simply.

“Really? Why’s that?”

“I doubt it’ll go after me. They never have before, anyway. Probably something to do with the Malice.”

“Wait, so we’re out here risking our lives when you could just walk up to the thing and stab it?”

“Not really, once I attacked it it’d attack back-”

“But one stab’s all you need if you’re actually good at what you do.”

“But I’m not doing it.”

“Coward.”  
“Idiot.”

“We need someone to do it,” Zelda says. “Vio can’t because he’s the one shooting, and Shadow can’t or won’t. I can do it if none of you will-”

Blue shakes her head. “I’ll do it, I just want everyone to know that Shadow is a little bitch coward who doesn’t do anything for anyone.”

“We already knew that-”

“Shut up, Red.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up! You’re the one who’s too afraid to go stab that thing-”

“I’m not  _ afraid _ , it’s just-”

“You’re afraid,” Red says dismissively. “Anyway, so what, Blue’s gonna just run around so Vio can shoot it?”

“She will have to be still. If she is running then the guardian will turn to follow her and I will miss.”

“What, so I’ve gotta just accept that it’s gonna kill me? What if you miss anyway?”

“I will not.”

“And if you do?”

“Then we will be short a teammate, I suppose.”

“So you’re agreeing that I might die.”

“No, because I will shoot it before it gets the chance.”

“But if you miss.”

“But I will not.”

“But say you do.”

“Say I do not.”

“Not feeling very reassured,” She says testily, “But fine, okay, I’m bait, whatever. Let’s just get it over with. I wanna eat.”

“Weren’t you the one who suggested just rushing in-”

“Weren’t you the one who suggested being a coward? Yeah, that’s what I thought, so shut up and try not to get in the way.”

The second guardian isn’t difficult to find- it’s a small wetland, and the thing is loud anyway, humming as it crawls through its endless patrol. 

Blue meets Vio’s eyes, makes sure he’s ready, then foists her spear off on Zelda (regardless of how this stunt goes, she won’t need it) and walks directly into the guardian’s path, back to Vio, and sits down.

The guardian takes a second to notice her, its scanner evidently at less than 100%, and when it does it steps backwards, head twitching left and right as it calibrates its tracer beam to center on her chest. She knows that the light probably gives off very little heat but it feels like it’s burning through her skin, and even though she has the utmost confidence in Vio’s judgement and ability, she wants to yell at him to just  _ shoot already _ .

The guardian’s beam steadies on her and stops wavering, and that’s when Vio decides to shoot, just as the guardian begins charging its final beam. The glass shatters as the arrow disappears into its machinery and that’s all there is to it, and the guardian drops stiffly to the dirt and its lights fade out.

“You waited that long on purpose,” Blue complains as she stands up, brushing the dirt from her pants.

“I was waiting until I was certain it would not move anymore.”

“Yeah, and waiting until you were certain I wasn’t gonna move anymore. ‘Cause I’d be dead. ‘Cause it would’ve shot me. ‘Cause you didn’t-”

“Yes, I get the picture, thank you.”

They pull this guardian apart too, a little easier this time with the practice of the previous one under their belts. Vio joins in, even, at first with a strange nervous timidity but gaining confidence as he goes, and within five minutes he’s ripping the thing apart gear by gear- carefully enough to avoid damaging the parts, but ripping nonetheless, and with enough ferocity that none of them feel obligated to tell him that they’ve already met their quota.

He’s nearly finished stripping the entire bottom of the guardian when he pauses, frowns and presses an eye against a gap in the undercarriage.

“There is something in here,” He says. “Different than what we have already, I think.”

Zelda comes over to investigate, peers through a ventilation slot and makes a thoughtful noise. “I don’t know if this was in the other one.”

Red nudges her aside to look for himself. “That or we just didn’t dig into the other one far enough to find it. Either way we definitely don’t have one.”

“Should we try to get it?”

“It would be irritating to go back to the lab to find out that it was the one part we needed most. I say we take it while we are already here.”

“That’s gonna take some work.” Red steps aside to let Blue get a look. “Seems like that thing’s lodged in there pretty deep.”

Blue immediately looks to Shadow. “Magic Man?”

“I can bend the metal if you want, but I’m not gonna mess with whatever that thing is. I don’t wanna fry the only one we’ve got.”

He pulls the same trick as he had in Kakariko, softening the metal until it wilts and Blue can push it aside with the haft of her spear, careful not to let any touch her. It takes a minute of vandalizing the anchors, but the thing comes out, and she slides back out holding a fist-sized object. It looks almost spherical, rounded glass panes framed in metal, surprisingly light for its density and glowing a faint sunset orange.

“What is it?”

“Hell if I know. I’m just the one who got it.”

“So do we have what we need? Or do we have to keep looking for more fights to pick?”

“I can’t see Robbie needing more than what we have,” Zelda says, carefully depositing the unidentified orb in her bag. “How big is the slate, anyway?”

“The size of a book, maybe?”

“A book could be literally any size.”

Green makes a face. “Standard book size. I don’t know what else to compare it to. A… like, a serving tray?” He approximates a size frame with his hands. “Sorta like that, but I’ve seen different accounts, so maybe it’ll be different.”

“What we have should be more than enough, then. It’s about as much as we can carry anyway.”

“What if he makes it wrong and has to scrap a few and we run out?”

“He can make his prototypes with his own parts. Once he thinks he’s got it then he can use the new pieces.”

“And if he has to scrap those too?”

“Then he can come out here and get more himself.”

 

Robbie is delighted by their haul, all but ignoring them as he lays out all the parts on the sanded maplewood floor. He mutters to himself as he goes, sorting pieces by criteria known only to him, looking very much like a child sifting through a pile of toys.

After perhaps half an hour of this, he takes his meticulously arranged rows and sweeps them into four jumbled heaps and with great care transfers them to a table beside the oven.

“I’m going to whip up a first draft with the worst of the parts you’ve brought, just to be sure that my programming is sound, but of course it is, so there’s no need to worry about how it’ll come out. There’s a small problem, however- I’m missing a component, a vital one, and while I might be able to rip it from one of my research subjects, I doubt its quality is reliable, so-”

“So what?” Blue asks, bored by the pointless rambling. “What do you need?”

Robbie sniffs. “Well, I doubt you’d know what it is, but I need a functional core. They’re difficult to find in working condition, or at all, really; with all the Malice in their systems, the guardians no longer seem to need them to run.”

Zelda and Vio share a look, and Zelda takes the carefully wrapped sphere from her bag and shows it to Robbie. “One of these, you mean?” She asks, trying not to sound as smug as she feels.

He blinks a few times, evidently surprised and certainly pleased, and his face breaks into a smile. “That will do brilliantly,” He says as he takes it and examines it almost reverently. “Yes, this will work wonderfully. What a shock to find something so well-preserved! I don’t think I could have asked for better!” He lays it gently on the table, nested in oilcloth. “Well, it’s only a matter of waiting for you now, you’re free to stay or go as you will. My test run won’t take me longer than an hour or so, but I’ll have to take the utmost care with the core- no rush jobs with such delicate machinery, naturally. If I’m let alone I’m certain I’ll have your final product before sunrise tomorrow.”

It’s a polite request for them to leave him to it, so they do, set up a little camp and fire under the shelter of the lab and pass the rest of the day there. It seems to crawl by, eager as they are to see the fruits of their labor, and the more they talk about it the more time seems to slow, but morning does come, and they force themselves to eat an unenthusiastic breakfast before they file in to bother Robbie.

Robbie is asleep on a table face-down in a mound of screws.

“The hell,” Blue says, and Robbie snaps awake (nearly knocking several screws off the table) and looks blearily around.

“It’s done,” Robbie says with obvious triumph, though he slurs a little, pushing himself up and standing with his chest puffed out, a comical sight given his short stature and disheveled hair and crooked goggles. “Done and as close to perfect as any earthly thing can be. A masterpiece of technology-” He cuts himself off in his excitement and stumbles over to the mouth of the oven, twists one of its ‘ears’ and grabs the slate off the tray. “My finest creation,” He says, oozing pride, and presents it to Green.

The slate is thicker than he’d expected it to be, but it’s light and comfortable in his hands, a solid slab of dark metal with raised bars of circuitry wrapping around it like vines.

“Go on, turn it on,” Robbie tells him, radiating enthusiasm. “Hold it by the handle.”

Green does. Light begins creeping through the circuits like liquid poured through pipes, and the sheikah eye set into the back of the slate flashes bright winter blue, and he turns it over and the screen is on, another eye made of thread-thin lines glaring out at him against the not-quite-black of the screen.

But that’s all it does.

“It’s incredible,” Green says, hesitantly, “But…”

“But it doesn’t  _ do _ much, yes, I’m quite aware. I’ve created a slate, but I’m unable to program it beyond that. I’ve done what Impa has asked- you can see her as to how to continue. The only suggestion I can give is to see a very good friend of mine, another researcher named Purah. We once studied the technology together, but she relocated many years ago to carry out her own studies.”

“Where is she now?”

“In a humble little lab in Hateno, last I heard.”

Their collective relief is obvious; no out-of-the-way errand, just another excuse to stop back home.

“Convenient,” Green says, sounding more cheerful now, “We live there.”

“Well, give her my regards, won’t you? It isn’t so easy to get a message along from here to Hateno anymore.”

 

They go to Hateno first, despite Impa’s instructions, so they can sleep in their own beds at least for a day or two, and they venture up to the lab on the hill early in the morning the day after they arrive.

“I’ve lived in Hateno for a while,” Zelda says, “But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sheikah here. I don’t think I’ve seen  _ anyone  _ come in or out of the building.”

“Not even the younger kids go in there,” Red agrees. “They’ll stick their noses everywhere they don’t belong, but they won’t touch the lab.”

“What, do you think Robbie lied to us or something?”

“It isn’t that,” Zelda says, not entirely convincingly, “It’s only, well- we’ve just wondered before what it is about that place that keeps them away.”

“Maybe it’s the woman in there? I think Robbie called her Purah. But I feel like someone who’s supposed to be a good friend of Robbie can’t really be that bad.”

“It may be that she deliberately scares off interlopers. Children constantly interfering would certainly distract from whatever it is that she is studying.” 

“Should we really trust someone who scares kids?”

“Shadow scares kids and we still keep  _ him _ around.”

“Shut up, Blue, you scare them too-”

“No I don’t actually, because I had to watch all the little kids in my village before I left and they followed me around like ducklings and they  _ loved _ me. Kids just scream when you try to talk to them. It’s probably because you’re ugly.”

“ _ I’m _ ugly?”

“Have you ever  _ seen  _ yourself?”

“Please,” Red says, gently pulling Blue away, “Save this for after we talk to this lady.”

“I’m just saying that maybe he should try being less ugly.”

“And you should try being less annoying. Leave him alone or I’ll push you down the hill.”

“You’re disloyal. You should be supporting me.”

Red rolls his eyes, walks a little further ahead so Blue can’t try to trip him.

Green, meanwhile, is holding the slate, tracing the fluorescent blue lines across its screen. “I don’t really know what we’re supposed to be getting from her. Is it something we put in the thing? ‘Cause I don’t see anywhere to do that.”

“I think Robbie said something about functions,” Zelda says. “Since it doesn’t really do anything right now. Maybe she’s supposed to make it work?”

“But how? There’s no, like, there’s nowhere for anything to go in.” Green pauses, turns it over again and then passes it to her. “Maybe I’m missing something.”

Zelda squints at it a little, hands it back as they reach the door to the lab and shrugs. “No idea,” She says candidly. “Guess we’re about to find out, though.”

Blue knocks (against their better judgement; she bangs on the door like she’s law enforcement ready to make an arrest) and no one answers. She knocks (bangs) again, and then again after a minute, and she’s about to do it  _ again _ when finally they hear a lock slide, and the door opens just a crack. 

“What do you want.” The voice is dry and flat and old and not quite what any of them are expecting, and for a moment none of them are sure what to say.

“Robbie sent us,” Red says, pushing to the front of their group. “He said he was a friend of yours?”

The door opens a little more. “Robbie sent you? For what? We haven’t seen one another in years.”

“He made something for us,” Green says, holds out the slate, “And he said you could help us with it.”

“Presumptuous of him.” Still, the door swings open. “Well, I suppose you should come in. I’ll see what I can do for you.”

Purah is old, with wrinkled skin and a slight stoop that suggests the early stages of some back issue, but the excitement that lights her face when she takes the slate from Green makes her seem like she’s back in her early years.

“It’s been decades since I’ve had the chance to work with one of these,” She says with obvious delight. “I’d almost forgotten about them. Almost.” She’s bustling about the room, taking little pieces from shelves and gathering them all on a countertop and arranging them all in some odd pedestal in the corner of the room. “Although I have to wonder why Robbie would put so much work into one of these for… well, to be blunt,  _ you _ . It’s an extremely specialized piece of technology, and everywhere it could possibly be used is inaccessible.”

“A favor for Impa,” Shadow says. “We’re running some errands for her.”

“Impa!” Purah nods, apparently pleased by this. “Well, it’s good to hear she has some plans in motion, even if they seem to be far-fetched.” She nods again, seemingly to herself, as she coils several delicate wires into an open panel in the side of the pedestal. “Good to hear indeed.” She snaps the panel shut and brushes the extraneous pieces aside (a few roll onto the already-messy floor) and takes up the slate again and brings it to the pedestal.

There’s a indent in the top of the pedestal roughly the size of the slate, and it’s there that Purah puts it, gently slots it in until a little metal clip takes it by the handle and turns it and sets it deeper into the pedestal. 

“What is it-”

“You’ll see.”

It takes a minute, and then the little metal arm pushes the slate back up and releases it, and Purah takes it eagerly; when she grips the handle the screen comes to life, and this time it progresses beyond the eye screen, comes to a screen with six little boxes, only one of which is filled. There’s a small green icon in it, a tiered box with a circle in the middle, and it’s this that Purah taps. The screen goes black, then white, then blue, and suddenly on the screen is a perfect image of the table and chairs and countertop in front of it, and when the slate moves the image changes to exactly what’s in front of it. 

“This is the camera rune,” Purah says, glowing with pride like a new mother. “It can capture and save images of whatever you point it at. Good for remembering things.”

“...And the other five?”

“Nothing yet. You’ll have to get those yourselves. I can only activate it to receive runes.”

“And where do we get those?”

Purah shrugs ruefully. “I used to know,” She says when Blue starts to argue, “We knew a shrine to distill all the runes at once, but it was destroyed in the Calamity. The camera is a rune I programmed myself- it was a prototype when Link was alive, so I’ve never been able to really use it. It’s been perfected since then.”

Blue looks at Purah, then at the slate, then back at Purah. “So we can’t use this thing.”

“You  _ can  _ use it,” Purah huffs. “It isn’t my fault you’re missing runes. Certainly it isn’t my fault that Impa didn’t tell you what to expect. Why does she need this anyway?”

“It’s a secret,” Shadow says irritably. “Confidential information.”

Purah levels a withering glare at him. “Not to me it isn’t. I have more clearance than Robbie does. If he knows then I know, and if you won’t tell me, he will.” She’s still holding the slate, and she drums her fingernails on the screen. “It’s your choice, of course. Tell me and have the slate now or wait until I can contact Robbie so he can fill me in. I hope this task isn’t urgent- the postmaster is unreliable at best, and it’s an awful long run from here to Akkala.”

“We know,” Zelda says, gently ushering Blue back (and pushing Shadow back with significantly less care). “Robbie isn’t actually aware of… the nature of our task, but I’m sure Impa would be okay with us telling you. She’s trying to find a way to kill Ganon, and she said this would be our first step.”

“Kill Ganon? It was only a few years ago that she denounced that very idea. She said it would be better to wait until Link was back, so we’d have the sword, at least.” She pauses, then adds under her breath “Don’t know why she’s so set on that rusted scrap of metal.”

Red shares a confused look with the rest of the group- he wonders if she’s forgotten that the Champions are dead. “She’s had a change of heart,” He says delicately.  
“Personal reasons,” Zelda adds. “She wouldn’t even tell _us_. We’re just her errand group.”

“She does like her secrets,” Purah says haughtily, but she relents, and with one last wistful look at the slate she hands it back over to Green. “Well, fine. Take it back to her and see what she wants to do. This is all I can do with it since we don’t have the master shrine anymore. Won’t be much use against anything, but maybe Missus Elder has an idea.”

She’s obviously eager to see them go- there’s something clumsily hidden in the corner of the room, and she’s hovering around it, keeping them away from it and glancing back and forth between them and the door- so they leave, and not much better off than before.

They stay only a day, to get a decent night’s sleep and to restock their bags, and then they return to Impa with little more than another hurdle to jump.

“All those years alone have soured her,” Impa says when Green recounts their conversation with Purah. “I send her letters every new moon telling her to come visit and she always says the same thing. Too much work, and she has a groundbreaking experiment, and I’m just a lonely old crone.” Impa stops herself and takes a breath, and smiles at them and seems to reset. “But relationship issues aside, it is good to hear that Robbie is still in business up there. Very good indeed. I get the feeling we will need that oven of his again before we’re through.” 

She has the slate in her lap, and she grips the handle with something approaching reverence. The screen snaps on and the eye flashes blue and then it’s the box screen again, and she nods. 

“This is very good,” She says. “Excellent, in fact. All it needs is its runes. Not at all difficult.”

“Purah said-”

“I know what she said,” Impa says, affronted, “She underestimates my foresight. No, dears, I know exactly where you can get them. A bit difficult to reach initially, I’m afraid, but the retrieval itself is deceptively easy.” She hands the slate to Vio. “Go take a picture of the map on my wall. Focus on the Great Plateau.”

He does, and Impa takes the slate back and lays it in the middle of the circle they’re sitting in. “You need four runes.”

“There are five boxes, though,” Green says.

“Four runes.” Impa smiles at him. “I know what I’m talking about, my dear.” She does an odd gesture on the screen with two of her fingers, and the image on the screen hones in on the northernmost part of the Plateau. “One shrine.” She pushes it to the left. “Another.” She pushes it down and slightly right. “One more.” She pushes it far to the right. “The last.”

“So we’re supposed to remember all that?”

“I will do a little work of my own before you leave. Right now I want you to know what to expect. Four shrines on the Plateau, each bearing a rune for the slate. One has two distinct forms- that accounts for the five empty slots.”

“And we need them?”

“For certain steps of this plan, most definitely. The divine beasts were programmed to accommodate only those who had access to a slate and its runes.” She pushes the slate with its map over to Green (who grimaces, and slides it to Zelda instead). “You will get a function to freeze, a function for stasis, a magnetism function, and two bomb functions. Take great care with the machines that distill the runes; we do not have the technology to replicate or even repair them.”

“But how do we do it?”

“They are all very similar to Purah’s, if you were paying attention to that. I have confidence that you will know what to do once you are there.”

“And how are we supposed to get to the shrines?”

Impa shrugs. “Find a way into the Plateau. It is possible to climb.”

“I’m sorry- we’re supposed to climb the Plateau? The  _ Great _ Plateau? The one that’s as big as Lanayru Peak and twice as steep? That one?”

“If you are so dedicated to this mission of yours, you will find a way up. It is not impossible. Many a curious historian has forged a path, and certain sheikah have made it as well. I know it to be a fact that there are several narrow paths spiraling up its sides. It is only a matter of finding them.”

“Okay,” Red says, “So let’s say we get onto the Plateau-”

“And you will-”

“How do we get  _ into _ the shrines? They don’t just let anyone in, do they?”

“The slate gives you access. Once the pedestal registers your slate the door will open and a platform will lower you into the heart of the shrine. Likely there will be a challenge to overcome in the shrine as well, to get you familiar with the rune’s function. The rest you can figure out for yourselves. As I said, this is not a difficult task.” And she smiles at them again. 

 

“Not a difficult task, my ass,” Blue says, standing before the imposing majesty of the Great Plateau and wondering just how in Hylia’s grace they’re going to get all the way up  _ there _ . “It’d be easier to turn into a Rito and fly up there. More realistic, too.”

“I think it’d be easier to wait until the weather eroded it to ground level. Then we could just walk right on.”

“Maybe if we lure a divine beast over and climb on it we can jump onto the Plateau.”

“Get this- a  _ really big hammer _ . And we just flatten it. No climbing required.”

“Do you think we could harness one of the divine dragons?”

“I can tie you to an arrow and fire you up there,” Vio says, so perfectly deadpan that Green thinks he’s being serious for a full five seconds. “Seems a reasonable solution.”

“I could probably get up there easy,” Shadow says, with a hint of a smirk that every single one of them would like to slap off of him, “But I dunno about you guys. You’ll probably just have to climb.”

“Why can’t you take us up with you if it’s so easy to get up there?”

“Too much work.”

“Are you f-”

“- _ And _ it’s very energy-consuming. I don’t think I can get all five of you up with the power I’m running on. I could do two trips at most.”

“So take all of us in two trips.”

“It’d be harder to do with more weight,” Shadow scoffs, as if the mechanics of his magic should be an obvious thing, “I could get two of you up and then I’d drop the rest of you trying to do it.”

“Your magic is stupid,” Blue says. “If it can’t even lift some people up then it must be pretty shitty.”

“You’re more than welcome to try to use it yourself.”

“Why would I bother with shitty useless magic? At least everything I do is skill and not cheating.”

“It takes just as much  _ skill _ to wield magic, thank you,” Shadow says acidically, “You’d probably kill yourself trying.”

“Then use your  _ skill _ and find a way to get everyone on the Plateau.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then your magic is shitty and so are you.”

“Hey,” Green says, cutting Shadow off before he can reply, “You can do that melty thing with anything, right? It doesn’t have to be metal?”

Shadow regards him at first with suspicion and then with mounting glee. “I can melt Blue?”

“No, stupid,” Green says, and Shadow falls back into his bad mood, “This is a serious question.”

“It works on everything I’ve tried so far,” Shadow says, “But how long I can do it for depends on what I’m using it on.”

“Could you just carve a path up along the side? Like a tunnel up to the top?”

Shadow takes a few steps backwards and assesses the height of the Plateau. “Probably not,” He says candidly.

Blue groans. “Why are we even doing all of this for you?”

Shadow glares at her again. “I could do it if I had enough Malice, but I don’t think I do. I could get maybe… I dunno, three-quarters of the way up.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s a tall fucking piece of land.”

“You keep extra with you, though, don’t you?” Red flicks the bag on his back. “The Malice, I mean. You said you did before, anyway.”

“That’s my emergency reserve.”

“Would it be enough to get us all the way to the top?”

“Yeah, but it’s for emergencies-”

“And this is an emergency.”

“Not really.”

“Unless you want to scale that whole thing by hand, it is.”

“You can’t coerce me into doing this.”

“I can threaten you into doing it.”

“Can’t do that either. You couldn’t touch me if I didn’t want you to.”

“I can tell Impa on you.”

“She’s like a million miles away by now.” Still, that seems to have some kind of an effect on him- he sighs and swings his bag off one arm and digs through it for the fireglass bottle. “Look, I  _ can _ do it, but if I wear myself out and I’m useless for the rest of the time we’re up there, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Blue claps a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Oh, we’re not worried about that. You’re useless anyway.”

Shadow is, in fact, far from useless (at least for the time being). They walk along the side of the Plateau until they find a likely place, mostly clear of jutting boulders and chunks of hewn stone, and Shadow goes to work melting a path through the hard-packed dirt. Even with the magic it looks like arduous work, and none of them envy him the task. He stops about two-thirds of the way up, when he’s little more than a speck against the pale, dry gray of the soil, and he stays there for what feels like forever but is more accurately only about ten minutes, and then he continues the work. Right as he nears the top of the stone ridge that crowns the Plateau, he starts tunneling inwards rather than around the circumference of the Plateau, and they don’t see him again until he reappears half an hour later at the crest of one of the points of the stone ridge. 

By then they’ve started a late lunch, and none of them realize he’s finished until he throws a rock over the side and dangerously close to their group (it’s a scant five feet away from hitting Zelda when it lands).

They all look up, see Shadow- presumably waving at them- on the Plateau, and go back to their meal.

Only once they’ve all finished do they brave the narrow path he’s managed to make up the side of the Plateau. It’s not neat by any stretch of the imagination- it’s a rough, uneven thing hewn into the dirt, three feet wide in some places and hardly a foot in others, sometimes tall enough for them to walk and sometimes so short they’re stooped to nearly a crawl. The higher they go the more violently the wind howls, and it’s a relief to finally get to the part where the tunnel turns sharply inwards and upwards, away from the threat of falling.

As they surface they find that the crowning ridge of stone is not a natural thing but rather a ring of stone-brick wall, manmade and run to riot, and it’s atop one of the more intact walls that Shadow is laying, head back against a pile of dirt and feet propped up against a loose brick.

“Thought you’d changed your mind,” Shadow says without bothering to look at them or even open his eyes. He sounds tired. “You sure took your time.” The fireglass bottle is half-closed, laid against his stomach (it’s empty, Green notices with both relief and concern).

“We had our lunch,” Zelda says, scaling the wall beside him, “And there’s some left over, if you want it.”

“‘M’good,” Shadow says noncommittally. “Full.”

Rather than think about why this is, Zelda shields her eyes with a hand and looks out over the distant, hazy continent below. “I wonder how high up we are right now.”

“Very.”

Zelda shoots him a look he doesn’t see. “Everything seems so small from up here.” After another minute of surveying, she turns back to the group and sits on the stone and lets her legs swing over the edge. “So? Where to first?”

“There’s supposed to be one for every point of the compass,” Red says. “I don’t think it matters. Whatever’s closest, I guess.”

“Getting a vantage point would be best,” Vio says (it’s a bit of a surprise- he hasn’t been speaking much the past couple of weeks). “No sense in wandering blindly if we do not need to.”

“There’s a mountain that way,” Shadow says, flipping a lazy arm to point in the general direction of west. “Not a big one, but it’s the highest point here.”

“I bet there’s a shrine over there, too,” Green says. “Seems like a good place to put one if you wanted to keep it safe.”

Zelda braces herself and jumps down from the wall; it isn’t particularly high, but the ground is bare and firm, and the impact jolts her ankles. “So let’s go that way, then. At least we agree on it.”

“The Plateau is not large, compared to the rest of the continent,” Vio adds. “We cannot be walking for long before we hit  _ something _ .”

“That’s good,” Green says, “I’m sick of all this walking.”

“Well, you could get a horse-”

“You know I’m not doing that, and anyway, horses can’t help us here. Vio had to leave Moka behind at Kakariko, so even  _ he’s _ hoofing it.” He pauses for the briefest of seconds, and then a goofy grin splits his face. “No pun intended.”

Blue makes a brief attempt to shove Green to the ground, and after failing to do so settles for pushing him along like a stubborn child. “Okay, let’s go, let’s go, I wanna get  _ something _ done today besides standing around waiting for other people to do things for me.”

They don’t walk far at all before stumbling across something. In their path is an enormous pile of rock, dusted with dirt and sprouting weeds and tufts of grass from various cracks. They make to go around it, but Zelda decides to make an adventure of it and climbs the keystone boulder instead, manages to navigate the rubble on top for a minute before sliding down the uneven surface back to ground level. She’s between the two halves of the boulder that makes up the bulk of this obstacle- split long ago by some titanic force, apparently- and she’s about to try to climb back up when she bangs her knee on something sticking up from the dirt. 

She’s about to kick the stupid interloping rock away from her when she realizes that it isn’t a rock at all. “Hey, hold on,” She says gently, and then again, louder this time, so that Red peeks in from outside the little half-cave. “There’s something in here,” She tells him as she kneels beside it. “Get Shadow or Blue or someone. I want to dig it out.”

She tries to lift it, but it doesn’t budge; she tries getting a fist-sized rock and beating the surrounding dirt loose, and  _ then _ tries to lift it, but it doesn’t yield, even when Shadow squeezes his way in among the group and tries to melt away its prison.

“I think it’s connected to something,” Red says. “Something too big or heavy to dig out.”

“Probably,” Zelda agrees, and kneels down again nonetheless, brushing a hand across the side of the thing. A layer of fine silt comes off on her hand, and there’s a faint pattern visible through the streak she’s left on its surface. She rubs at the spot harder, blows the dust off, and marvels at the sight; it’s metal wrought in a complicated, squiggly sort of pattern, and there’s a little circle of what looks like quartz or glass surrounded by a wreath of tarnished brown. 

“It looks like the slate.” Red gets up and gets Vio and drags him over to look at it. “Does this look sheikah to you?”

Vio considers that for a moment, runs a finger along the raised pattern. “Very old,” He says, “But I think so. It seems like it has been buried for a while.”

“I wanna clean it off. Maybe it’ll say something.”

The thing is filthy, and it takes at least ten minutes of doing to get it (mostly) clean, and after excavating a little pit of dirt in its center, they find an indent suspiciously similar to the one on Purah’s.

“Maybe this is a shrine,” Blue says, looking around at the massive broken boulder. “Maybe they’re disguised.”

“Or ruined.”

“Don’t be so negative, Vio, it’s probably camouflage.” 

“I do not think they would risk damaging valuable equipment by doing this. They would have had their ways of keeping people out.”

Green looks around. “Should I try to put the slate in? Just to see what happens?”

“I do not know that that thing is functional.”

“The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t work. I mean, hopefully you’re right and this wasn’t a shrine, but even if it was, at least we weren’t the ones to break it.”

“The worst that can happen is that this is some kind of trap and the slate breaks or it activates something malicious.”

“I really don’t think this is a trap. It’s one thing to hide, like, a pitfall, but this?” Red gestures to the filthy exterior. “I’m pretty sure whoever set it would’ve made it a lot easier to find.”

“Plus, who’s been up here to set traps? The Yiga never came up here, as far as I know, and even if they did, they’ve never been good at subtlety. Their kind of traps are the tripwire-and-knives kind. Usually.”

“Could you do some sort of check? With your magic, I mean?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know what I’m looking for. I have no idea what’s supposed to be in that thing and what isn’t.”

There’s a long minute of quiet.

“I say we just do it,” Blue says. “Who knows, maybe whatever’s in there will help us get the shrines.”

Green shrugs and passes the slate to Zelda. “Your call.”

Zelda looks at the slate and its five empty boxes, and nods. “May as well try,” She says, and brushes away the last of the dirt and gently fits the slate into the indent.

Nothing happens.

“Give it a minute?” Red suggests. 

For the briefest of seconds, the ground shakes.

Nothing continues to happen.

“That’s kinda disappointing,” Green admits, “I was kinda hoping for something more dramatic, like, I dunno, an explosion, or-”

Green gets what he hopes for (sort of). 

The screen of the slate flashes a blinding white, and then that bright wintry blue fills the screen and seeps into the pedestal, weaving its way along the curls and loops of the metalwork, until its glow disappears below the ground. Everything is dead silent for perhaps a minute. 

And then the ground explodes.

Shadow is the only one with any hope of escaping the chaos, but he doesn’t react fast enough, and he’s swept into it with the rest of them. A bulb like a wrought-iron spearhead breaks through the long-settled dust and dirt and rock and it catches all of them on a platform as it rises violently upwards. It’s steady for just a moment, just barely long enough for Zelda to get hold of Red and Vio and Blue to get a desperate grasp on a twisted arch of metal, and then it jerks again, goes tilted for a full thirty seconds; they’ve almost given up on holding on when finally it breaks free of whatever was trapping it, and the platform levels out as it surges upwards untethered.

The whole affair lasts no more than a minute from the time it begins to the time they lay dazed and confused on the platform, but the adrenaline makes it seem like hours, and none of them move until the wind eases and they’re (mostly) sure that nothing else is going to happen.

Green forces his fingers to release their death grip on Shadow’s arm, and he pushes himself to his feet and stands there unsteadily until he thinks he can walk. “Thanks,” He says to Shadow, and Shadow looks up at him wide-eyed and nods. 

“Wasn’t gonna let you fall,” Shadow says, trying for easygoing and only managing slightly anxious. 

Green looks around nervously and sees Zelda, leaning against the pedestal holding Red in a tight hug, and Vio has one arm around a twisted jut of metal with the other currently in Blue’s possession. “Is everyone alive?”

“Think so,” Blue says, realizes she’s still holding onto Vio and throws his arm away like she’s touched something disgusting. “You’re welcome,” She says to him with a smile obviously forced, and he rolls his eyes at her.

“Okay, obvious question,” Shadow says, leaning over the edge of the platform to look at the ground hundreds of feet below, “But what the hell was that? What the hell is  _ this _ ?”

“This isn’t a shrine, is it? This doesn’t seem like a shrine.”

“I don’t think so,” Zelda says. “Look.”

They follow her gaze to beyond the stone crown of the Plateau; in the distance they can see towers almost identical to theirs rising up from the ground, spearing into the late afternoon sky. Their locations seem completely random, and many of them are distant and unfamiliar, but there are places that they know for a fact had no tower previously. 

“Impa didn’t say anything about this, unless I missed something.”

“These have to be something else. They have to be, right? ‘Cause I’m not going through  _ that _ again just for some stupid rune, which, speaking of, did anything happen to the slate? Or did we just go through that for nothing?”

Zelda gets to her feet (still shaky) and pulls the slate from the pedestal and makes a face at it. “It’s different,” Is all she says.

“Different?”

“The boxes aren’t there.” She hands it down to Red. “See? It’s almost completely dark. There’s… I think it’s a piece of a map.”

“Is it Hyrule? I don’t recognize a lot of the names on this.”

He tries to pass it to Green, who turns it down (“Not good with maps,” He says apologetically), so Vio takes it instead. “Maybe this is the Plateau. None of this looks familiar to me.”

Shadow perks up. “Are the shrines on there? That would save us a lot of looking around.”

Vio shakes his head. “Only topography, but that is still useful. There is an area of high elevation towards the center. That seems likely enough to have a shrine.”

“Okay, so that’s one question that’s maybe answered,” Blue says, leans over the platform’s railing to look at the ground below, “But here’s another one: how do we get down?”

The tower turns out to have graduated platforms like enormous steps spiraling down the sides, and while it’s still a hefty climb down, at least the worst any of them can get from a fall is a sore ankle or two.

Even so it takes over an hour to get down, and by the time they’ve all got their feet back on terra firma, none of them want to go anywhere. 

They make camp in the shelter of the tower for the night, and in the morning they continue, now with a map to guide them (but still with no clue where they’re going).

“We’re close,” Zelda says, pointing to the little blip on the map that marks the slate’s position, “But I’m still not seeing anything that looks like it could be a shrine.”

“If they’re anything like the tower, they shouldn’t be hard to spot,” Green says. “What if this is all just an elaborate joke?”

“Impa would not joke about something like this.” Vio shades his eyes with a hand and looks up the slope ahead of them. “I am certain we will find something.” He pauses. “Eventually.”

“Well, we’re not trying to find things  _ eventually _ , we’re trying to find them  _ immediately _ , so-” Blue cuts herself off and squints, and throws an unnecessarily hard elbow into Green’s side. “Hey, you see that?”

Green follows Blue’s gaze, and he’s about to say that she’s just seeing things when he catches a gleam of aethereal bluish-green peeking around a jut of rock. 

“Yeah,” He says, “What does it look like to you?”

“I have no idea. It’s like fog or something.”

“Wanna go check it out?”

Green goes running off before she can answer, and Blue’s pride can allow for nothing other than to follow, and then the rest of them have to run to catch up, but by the time they get there Green and Blue are standing around looking baffled.

“It was  _ here, _ ” Green insists, “Right here!”

“I thought I saw something before it disappeared, but-” Blue blinks and then points to a place further uphill. “Look! There!”

It’s her turn to take the lead now, and she sprints off with Green close on her heels, but it’s the same situation once they get to where they thought the apparition was. 

“It keeps disappeari- okay, look! What is going  _ on _ !” 

Up at the top of the hill there’s something greenish and not-quite-real, but none of them can say what it is or even what it looks like, only that it’s vague and almost beckoning. 

“Okay,” Green says irritably, “Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you. What  _ is _ that thing?”

“There is a legend about bluish spirits appearing in forests and bogs to lead travelers astray. Maybe it is one of those.”

“Don’t be stupid, Vio, this is a hill, not a swamp.”

He gives her a look. “Just offering a possibility.” 

“Well, it wasn’t a very good one.”

“Should we go up there?”

“Why not? I doubt that a cloud is gonna be a threat.”

“Keep in mind that we do not know what exactly it is.”

“Keep in mind that I don’t care.”

At the top of the hill they find the apparition, but only for a second, barely long enough for any of them to see long enough to recognize. 

“It was a man,” Blue says firmly. “I know that.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know!” Blue kicks at the ground aimlessly. “Stupid thing didn’t stick around long enough for me to see. It was just an old dude.”

“Maybe it was trying to bring us here,” Zelda suggests, walking slowly to an arch carved into the sheer stone face of the short cliff above them. “It’s like the slate and the tower.”

The arch is rimmed with the same warm blue metal, run through with raised streaks of brown and dotted with glowing glass circles, but the metal here seems better cared for- not as dusty, not as tarnished, almost as if it’s been routinely polished clean. 

“This is a shrine,” Green says, “Isn’t it? What else would it be?”

“I don’t see a way to get in,” Shadow says. “There’s nowhere to put the slate, anyway.”

“Maybe it has to do with the door,” Vio suggests. “Or perhaps getting in is part of its challenge.”

“I can force it open,” Shadow says nonchalantly. “Here, watch.”

He walks up to the door and stares at it hard. Nothing happens.

“Are you trying to intimidate it into opening or something?”

“No,” Shadow says, frowning, “Something was supposed to happen. It’s fine, though, I can just melt it if it doesn’t wanna open.”

He puts his palms to the door and concentrates. Nothing happens. He concentrates a little harder, and a thin, wavery blue aura begins to coalesce around the door, and Shadow thinks he’s done it when the aura suddenly crackles with energy and pulses outward and burns Shadow’s hands so badly they bleed.

“What the fuck,” He says eloquently, staring at the cracked, bleeding blisters on his palms. “What the fuck? That’s never happened before.”

“Even the shrines hate you,” Red says sagely. 

“We don’t  _ know _ yet,” Shadow says petulantly. “Maybe it was just the wrong way in.”

“We should just try the slate,” Green says, and joins Shadow at the door and presses the face of the slate against the door. He can feel a faint thrum pass through the door, but nothing else. 

“You think we could break in somehow?”

“You saw what it did when Shadow tried. I think it’s designed to prevent unwelcome visitors.”

“Well, if we’re unwelcome, then our whole quest kind of ends here, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe it has to be a specific person who does it. I don’t blame it for not wanting Shadow in-”

Blue stops- something feels off. Not wrong, not necessarily, but  _ off _ . It takes her a second to realize that she can feel something else there with them, doing something that she can only think to describe as appraising. 

They’re being judged. 

She shares a startled look with Vio, who with the slightest motion shrugs at her. She looks around, tries to see if any of them understand what’s going on- none of them do, of course, and the feeling seems to last forever, and when it withdraws it’s all she can do to keep from shivering. 

“What  _ was  _ that-”

Slowly, the door opens.

It doesn’t open like a normal door might, instead separating into segments and withdrawing into the ceiling above, and they can hear the echo of another door further down the passage doing the same. 

.: _ You are not meant to be here _ :. whispers a nondescript voice as cool and airy as an autumn breeze .: _ But I will let you in all the same. Look well. This door shall not open again for six decades, if ever it does:. _

Red is the first to step beyond the threshold, and he beckons the others after him. “Who are you? Do you guard the shrine?”

.: _ I guard nothing _ :. Sighs the voice .: _ not for many years. I protected nothing even then, though I thought otherwise _ :.

“But who  _ are _ you?”

“Are you a poe? Or a spirit?”

.: _ This land has not seen the soul trappers in many centuries. I am a spirit, if you must know _ :.

“Yeah, and who  _ are _ you? Who  _ were _ you? Do you even remember?”

.: _ I remember all too well, dear child, and you may know in due time. Focus now on where you are. There are more important things to see _ :.

There’s a circular room at the end of the hall with a strange contraption in the center; it looks like a massive smoke vent for an oven suspended over a washing pond, but the entire room is made of the metal that the arch and corridor were made of, and there are walls of blue light containing something within the basin.

“Is this where we get the rune?” Green asks, walking over to the basin, “Because honestly, I expected something not quite as l-” He stops short when he reaches the basin and reflexively takes a step back. 

“What,” He says, eyes wide and mouth agape, “This isn’t-”

.: _ There are four shrines on this plateau that you seek. This is the fifth, and you are not meant to be inside _ :.

“This is where they took the Champion?” Vio asks, awed. “By all accounts he died there in the field.”

.: _ Very few know the truth of it, as a precaution. Z- the princess had a detail of sheikah assigned to Link, and they brought him here when he fell. You are standing within the Shrine of Resurrection, an honor bestowed upon fewer than five individuals until now _ :.

“So he’s going to come back?” Green feels like it’s disrespectful to stare at the dead but it’s hard to control- he’s looking at the Hylian Champion in the flesh, and he looks almost alive, just sleeping, except for the angry red welts and bruises and lacerations all over his body.

.: _ This technology is old, and the sheikah have forgotten their ways. The shrine may be nothing but a pool of sacred water now. Even if it is functional, Champion Link will not rise until his century of sleep has passed _ :.

“That’s… a gamble,” Zelda says, trying not to sound disdainful.

.: _ There was nothing else to do. The Champions were unique. Link had certain… family ties that eased his passage into the title. This was the only hope… but I have discovered your little party, and I would like to believe that we have a new hope now _ :.

“So this is nice and all,” Shadow interrupts, “But where do we go from here?”

.: _ I can help you to find the shrines you seek _ :. The voice sounds tired, and above all sad .: _ once you leave this plateau you are beyond my power _ :.

The voice directs them to leave the shrine and its sleeping occupant, and the doors slam shut behind them as they exit into the dying light. 

.: _ You will rest here this night _ :. It tells them, brooking no argument .: _ and I will lead you to your first shrine at break of dawn. My power wanes as the Calamity’s waxes, and I fear that we may face another surge soon _ :.

“A surge?” Shadow looks cowed. “A blood moon, you mean.”

.: _ Child of Ganon, you need not fear _ :. The voice, if it had a face, would almost certainly have its mouth twisted in distaste (Shadow balks at the epithet) .: _ here you are shielded from him somewhat. The monster cannot touch you directly while within the plateau _ :.

Shadow brightens visibly. “Why is that? Does the shrine protect us?”

.: _ That is for me to know and for you to trust. You must sleep and do not post a watch, for you will be at peace so long as I am with you _ :.

So they set a camp and a fire, and after brief discussion decide that they can trust this voice for now (none are willing to give up their sleep, not after their most recent shock). The plateau is cool and breezy, and there hasn’t been a sign of a single monster yet, and they’re all asleep within half an hour.

When Zelda wakes halfway through the night, groggy and in want of a drink, there’s a person sitting with his legs dangling over the cliff, and with his face turned to the firelight she can see that he’s crying, and the tears that fall are bluish-green and don’t ever reach the ground.

She knows that profile, she thinks desperately, still too sleepy to think right. 

She turns over and goes back to sleep, perturbed.


End file.
